FATF Updates Its Listing of Jurisdictions Under Increased Monitoring

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) identified 23 jurisdictions under increased monitoring in October 2021 which are actively working with the FATF to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing.

In the intervening months until March 2022, 17 of these 23 jurisdictions had their progress reviewed by FATF, resulting in Zimbabwe being designated as a jurisdiction no longer subject to increased monitoring due to its “significant progress in improving its AML/CFT regime”.

• Albania
• Barbados
• Burkina Faso
• Cambodia
• Cayman Islands
• Jamaica
• Malta
• Morocco
• Myanmar
• Nicaragua
• Pakistan
• Panama
• Philippines
• Senegal
• South Sudan
• Uganda, and
• Zimbabwe

Four other countries were given the opportunity to have their progress review by FATF and chose to defer reporting.

• Haiti
• Jordan
• Mali, and
• Turkey

In the cases of Syria and Yemen, FATF was unable to conduct on- site visits to confirm process in implementation of their respective action plans.

Following review during this period, FATF added the United Arab Emirates to its March 2022 list of jurisdictions with strategic deficiencies. In its statement regarding UAE, FATF noted that in February 2022 UAE “made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and [FATF’s MENA regional body] to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime” and that the UAE will work towards implementing its FATF action plan.

As of October 2021, two countries – Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – remain designated by FATF as high-risk jurisdictions subject to a call for action.