Financial Action Task Force holds third plenary meeting
Update
Global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recently concluded its third plenary meeting at the organisation’s Paris headquarters. Under the Presidency of Singapore’s T. Raja Kumar, delegates from more than 200 jurisdictions of the Global Network gathered with observers from international organisations.
The FATF reiterated its message that all jurisdictions should be vigilant to current and emerging risks from the circumvention of measures taken against the Russian Federation in order to protect the international financial system.
Members agreed to publish the fourth targeted update on the implementation of the FATF Recommendations on virtual assets and virtual asset service providers, and also advanced the FATF’s work on preventing the misuse of non-profit organisations (NPOs) as well as agreeing to release potential revisions to Recommendation 8 and the updated FATF Best Practices paper on combating the abuse of NPOs.
Delegates heard updates on projects including tackling the misuse of citizenship and residency by investment schemes, money laundering and terrorist financing related to cyber-enabled fraud, and crowdfunding for terrorist financing. They also discussed enhancements to FATF Recommendations 4 and 38, providing countries with stronger legal measures to freeze, seize and confiscate criminal property and property of corresponding value, including non-conviction-based confiscation. A number of other new projects were initiated, including one aimed at enhancing money laundering investigations and prosecutions.
The FATF also discussed and adopted the mutual evaluation report of Luxembourg which assessed the effectiveness of that country’s measures for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, and their compliance with the FATF Recommendations. The plenary concluded that Luxembourg has reached a high level of technical compliance with the FATF’s requirements and its AML/CFT regime is delivering good results.
Jurisdictions under increased monitoring are actively working with the FATF to address the strategic deficiencies in their regimes for countering money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing. When the FATF places a jurisdiction under increased monitoring, it means the country has committed to implement an Action Plan to resolve strategic deficiencies identified within agreed timeframes. New jurisdictions subject to increased monitoring are Cameroon, Croatia, and Vietnam.
Links: https://www.fatf-gafi.org/en/publications/Fatfgeneral/outcomes-fatf-plenary-june-2023.html