Key Outcomes from the FATF Plenary held on 23-25 October 2024

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) concluded its plenary session held in Paris from 23-25 October 2024 under the Presidency of Elisa de Anda Madrazo of Mexico.

Representatives from more than 200 jurisdictions attended the three-day-long event during which key issues related to AML, CFT, and CPF were discussed.

Major highlights of the meeting are:

Assessment Reports of Argentina and Oman

The FATF released mutual evaluations for Argentina and Oman, which concluded the fourth round of the assessment reports.

• Argentina Shows Improvements

The last FATF-GAFILAT mutual evaluation noted that Argentina had improved its AML/CFT system since the previous assessment.

The report found the progress of Argentina relative to other EU members. Still, it discovered opportunities for continued attention, including defining the laundering threats posed by corruption and enhancing the supervision of certain sectors of the financial structure.

• Oman’s AML Compliance Improvement

The joint FATF-MENAFATF report accounted for Oman’s improvement in its ratings of compliance with the AML/CFT regulation set.

Oman has improved efforts on financial intelligence and TF but has more to do with investigation and risk-based supervision

Updates on Jurisdictions Under Increased Monitoring

One of the main points discussed in the plenary was the FATF ‘grey list,’ which consisted of the countries engaged in responding to the shortcomings of the AML/CFT/CPF system.

• Monitoring List Additions

The following nations have been added to the monitoring list: Algeria, Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, and Lebanon. These countries are ready to fix known problems within a certain time frame.

• Senegal’s Progress

Senegal has fully complied with all the requirements set out in the action plans and was removed from the monitoring list. This achievement explains Senegal’s commitment to addressing strategic gaps in combating money crimes.

Introduced New Standards and AML/CFT Guidance

The FATF underlined its efforts to ensure financial inclusion and provided draft changes to the standards with a focus on recommendations for the risk-based approach.

The changes will enable the enhancement of plain procedures if lower monetized risks are realized to increase people’s crashes to sophisticated financial networks.

The FATF made new changes to its latest recommendations on National Risk Assessment. The purpose of this update is to facilitate a better understanding of countries’ illicit finance risks, including the countries with a limited capacity to address them.

That way, countries will identify areas that need addressing by prioritizing intervention based on risk potential.

Global Network Cooperation and Inclusivity Efforts

Another major positive development was to achieve better representation, the FATF extended an invitation to the Cayman Islands and Senegal to be the guest jurisdictions.

This initiative is in synergy with FATF’s commitment to improving cooperation in the Global Network, particularly at the regional level.

The FATF continues to promote women’s participation in both the Global Network (WFGN) Initiative and FATF. Next year, FATF will begin a second mentoring program to improve gender diversity and promote mentoring among FATF members.

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Strategic Initiatives and Future Projects

The FATF also introduced several ongoing initiatives regarding cross-border payment systems, risks posed by financing terrorism, and the fight against the exploitation of children through the Internet.

These projects are aimed to respond to emerging financial crime threats utilizing the FATF Standards update, data protection, and information-sharing mechanisms upgrade.

One of them is cooperation with data protection scholars and the private sector in order to synchronize AML requirements with the provisions regarding data protection and security.

The FATF is reopening its code of action to minimize the abusive application of AML/CFT provisions against NPOs and protect their bona fide operations.

Jurisdictions Subject to a Call for Action

To highlight the FATF mission for safeguarding the international financial system, it maintained its ‘Appointments of Graylist to jurisdictions with SFTs’ indicating a ‘Call for Action’ toward combating major exportation of Financial crimes.

These countries must act to enhance their structures to prevent risks to the interconnected system of the international financial system.

Ongoing Projects and Emerging Threats

This plenary session specifically addressed FATF’s position on the suspension of the Russian Federation and concerns about possible evasion activities.

FATF members stressed the need to keep AML/CFT measures effective in addressing new threats on the international level.

For the outcomes of the FATF plenary 2024, one can see today’s dedication to the improvement of measures against financial crime, joined with the principles of openness, cooperation, and flexibility.

Based on the details of the FATF’s mutual evaluation cycle, the members have continued focusing on the revised measures that suit the modern-day risks in financial crime.