FATF Vice-President Vladimir Nechaev addressed the 12th meeting of the Ministerial Committee of the Inter-Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) on 11 May. GIABA has now completed its first round of evaluations of its members with the FATF Recommendations. Mr. Nechaev highlighted this important achievement, but also stressed the importance of each country conducting the necessary reforms to improve their anti-money laundering / countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regimes. Every failure in a country's AML/CFT system threatens not only that country, but also the regional and international financial sectors.

private sector, consultative forum

The FATF organised a meeting of the Private Sector Consultative Forum in London on 25 and 26 April. The meeting was an opportunity for the FATF to update the members of the forum about recent activities and developments and to seek their input into a number of projects that the FATF is currently working on.

NPO

FATF met with Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs) on 24 April, the aim of the meeting was to stress the importance of ensuring that FATF Recommendation 8 on NPOs is not being implemented in a manner that disrupts or discourages legitimate charitable activity.

FATF President Bjørn S. Aamo presented future challenges in assessing compliance with the FATF Recommendations, which will focus much more on effectiveness. At the EU conference "Fighting money laundering and terrorist financing - New framework, future challenges" he also highlighted how the 4th EU Money Laundering Directive could contribute to progress in the implementation of the FATF Recommendations for many of the FATF's members.

The 2012 FATF Recommendations require that countries identify, assess and understand the money laundering and terrorist financing risks facing them and adapt their AML/CFT system accordingly. The FATF has adopted a new guidance which is intended to assist in the conduct of risk assessment at the country or national level. Once ML/TF risks are properly understood, country authorities may apply AML/CFT measures in a way that ensures they are commensurate with those risks – i.e. the risk-based approach (RBA) – which is central to the FATF standards as is set out in Recommendation 1.