Update From The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – October 2023

Update From The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – October 2023
Written by Suzanne White AICA Cert (KYC/CDD), Senior AML Consultant – FCS Compliance

In the international fight against money laundering The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) identifies jurisdictions with weak measures in place to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. They issue two documents 3 times a year and list countries with weak anti money laundering and terrorist financing measures in place. With the latest update in October 2023 the FATF has reviewed a total of 129 countries and jurisdictions and publicly identified 102 of them. Since being identified, they are pleased to report that under careful review 76 of these countries have since made the reforms to address their anti-money laundering and terrorist financing measures and have been able to be removed from the FATF’s monitoring process.

There are currently 2 published lists, the first being the countries that have been identified as High-Risk jurisdictions and subject to a Call for Action (known as ‘the black list’). These are the countries that have the most serious strategic deficiencies to counter money laundering, terrorist financing and financing of proliferation. For any countries appearing on both lists FATF urges all jurisdictions to apply enhanced due diligence when links to these countries are identified. In the most recent update in October the countries identified on the black list are:

• Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
• Iran
• Myanmar

The second list are the jurisdictions under increased monitoring often referred to as ‘the grey list’ These are the countries that are actively working with the FATF to address their deficiencies within their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing. When the FATF places a jurisdiction under increased monitoring it means that the country had committed to resolve the strategic deficiencies withing agreed timescales and is subject to increased monitoring by the FATF in order to ensure these measures are ongoing. As previously mentioned, Enhanced Due Diligence should always be applied. As of October 2023, the countries under increased monitoring are:

• Barbados
• Bulgaria – New to the list
• Burkina Faso
• Cameroon
• Croatia
• Democratic Republic of Congo
• Gibraltar
• Haiti
• Jamaica
• Mali
• Mozambique
• Nigeria
• Philippines
• Senegal
• South Africa
• South Sudan
• Syria
• Tanzania
• Türkiye
• Uganda
• United Arab Emirates
• Vietnam
• Yemen

The countries removed from this list in this latest update and no longer under increased monitoring were Albania, Cayman Islands and Panama

The purpose of these measures is to stop criminals and terrorists from abusing the financial system.  Through effective implementation of these measures, we can all play our part to help stop the financial flows linked to serious crime and terrorism and make society safer.

Source – Home (fatf-gafi.org) and “Black and grey” lists (fatf-gafi.org)