Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering

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The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), also known by the French name Groupe d'action financière sur le blanchiment de capitaux (GAFI), is an inter-governmental body founded in 1989 by the G7. The purpose of the FATF is to develop policies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. The FATF Secretariat is housed at the headquarters of the OECD in Paris.

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[edit] The FATF Forty Recommendations and Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing

The primary policies issued by the FATF are the Forty Recommendations on money laundering and the Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing

Together, the Forty Recommendation and Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing set the international standard for anti-money laundering measures and combating the financing of terrorism. Both sets of FATF Recommendations are intended to be implemented at the national level through legislation and other legally binding measures.

The FATF issued the Forty Recommendations in 1990 and completely revised them in 1996 and 2003. The current (2003) Forty Recommendations require states, among other things, to:

  • implement relevant international conventions
  • criminalise money laundering and enable authorities to confiscate the proceeds of money laundering
  • implement customer due diligence (eg identity verification), record keeping and suspicious transaction reporting requirements for financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses and professions
  • establish a financial intelligence unit to receive and disseminate suspicious transaction reports, and
  • cooperate internationally in investigating and prosecuting money laundering.

The FATF issued 8 Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing in October 2001, following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The FATF issued a ninth Special Recommendation on Terrorist Financing in October 2004.

The Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing broadly extend the application of the Forty Recommendations to terrorist financing and introduce new requirements relating to services such as alternative remittance, wire transfers and cash couriers as well as non-profit organisations.

[edit] List of Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories

In addition to FATF's "Forty plus Nine" Recommendations, in 2000 FATF issued a list of "Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories" (or "NCCTs", and commonly called the FATF Blacklist). This was a list of 15 jurisdictions that, for one reason or another, FATF members believed were uncooperative with other jurisdictions in international efforts against money laundering (and, later, terrorist financing). Typically, this lack of cooperation manifested itself as an unwillingness or inability (frequently, a legal inability) to provide foreign law enforcement officials with information relating to bank account and brokerage records, and customer identification and beneficial owner information relating to such bank and brokerage accounts, shell company, and other financial vehicles commonly used in money laundering.

The effect of the FATF Blacklist has been significant, and arguably has proven more important in international efforts against money laundering than has the FATF Recommendations. While, under international law, the FATF Blacklist carries with it no formal sanction, in reality, a jurisdiction placed on the FATF Blacklist often finds itself under intense financial pressure. As a result of the FATF 40+8 Recommendations (among other initiatives), most countries now require their banks to report certain suspicious financial activities to the appropriate financial regulators and law enforcement authorities. (In the United States, these are called Suspicious Activity Reports or S.A.R.'s.) Most larger countries with significant financial centers consider transactions coming from or transferring to a jurisdiction on the FATF Blacklist to be a suspicious activity, which automatically triggers closer regulatory scrutiny (and considerably more paperwork on the bank's part). Because of this, many major financial institutions will not conduct business with counterparts based in NCCTs. Since many of the countries that FATF originally listed as NCCTs have major financial industries (i.e., the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein), such de facto boycotts could have a significant effect on a country's economy (or at least a politically powerful sector of the economy).

To date, of the 23 jurisdictions originally named by FATF as NCCTs, all but one have changed their laws and instituted other changes (such as creating Financial Intelligence Units) to convince FATF members to remove them from the Blacklist.

[edit] Members

The FATF currently has 33 members, comprising 31 member countries and territories and 2 regional organisations, as follows:

  1. Argentina
  2. Australia
  3. Austria
  4. Belgium
  5. Brazil
  6. Canada
  7. Denmark
  8. European Commission (regional organisation)
  9. Finland
  10. France
  11. Germany
  12. Greece
  13. Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (regional organisation)
  14. Hong Kong, China
  15. Iceland
  16. Ireland
  17. Italy
  18. Japan
  19. Luxembourg
  20. Mexico
  21. Kingdom of the Netherlands
  22. New Zealand
  23. Norway
  24. Portugal
  25. Russian Federation
  26. Singapore
  27. South Africa
  28. Spain
  29. Sweden
  30. Switzerland
  31. Turkey
  32. United Kingdom
  33. United States

[edit] Observer members

The People's Republic of China, South Korea, the 8 FATF-Style Regional Bodies and several international organisations including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank hold observer status with the FATF.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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