I want a finders fee for reporting anyone who makes an illegal proposal to me. It would be a huge moral hazard to pay banks for flagging illegal activity. This should be part of normal procedure.

> I was under the impression the finder's fee would be attributed to the employee, by the financial institution

Sorry for being too ambiguous, "it all wraps around" on my end as well.

As I wrote in the second paragraph ("cynicism level a bit darker"), it would be impossible for rewards to outbid transaction fees anyways, because the latter can be inflated in plausibly deniable cooperation between launderer and bank: slap on some bogus insurance, the 24 hours on call special and that outrageously expensive package that would in theory allow to summon a clerk being flown out to your yacht. All understood, on both sides, to be specifically designed to increase transaction fees to make turning a blind eye worthwhile. Money launderers know everything about reading and writing between the lines, it's basically their job.

Banks would still just catch the small fish who shop around for the lowest rates like a regular person. In the end, sibling comments about snakes and hazards are right.