Belgium’s progress in strengthening measures to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing

Publication details

Language

English

French

Country

Follow-Up Report Belgium - September 2018

Filename
FUR-Belgium-2018.pdf
Size
787 KB
Format
application/pdf
Download

Paris, 3 September 2018 – As a result of Belgium’s progress in strengthening its framework to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing since their 2015 mutual evaluation, the FATF has re-rated the country on 15 of the 40 Recommendations.

Belgium has been in an enhanced follow-up process, following the adoption of their mutual evaluation, which assessed the effectiveness of their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) measures and their compliance with the FATF Recommendations. In line with the FATF Procedures for mutual evaluations, the country has reported back to the FATF on the progress it has made to strengthen its AML/CFT framework

This report analyses Belgium’s progress in addressing the technical compliance deficiencies identified in the mutual evaluation report. 

To reflect this progress, the FATF has re-rated Belgium on the following Recommendations:

1 – Assessing risks & applying a risk-based approach
2 - National cooperation and coordination
10 – Customer due diligence
12 - Politically exposed persons
16 – Wire transfers
17 – Reliance on third parties
18 – Internal controls and foreign branches and subsidiaries
19 – Higher-risk countries
26 – Regulation and supervision of financial institutions
27 – Powers of supervisors
28 – Regulation and supervision of DNFBPs
33 - Statistics
35 - Sanctions

 

The report also looks at whether Belgium’s measures meet the requirements of FATF Recommendations that have changed since their 2015 mutual evaluation, taking into account any new measures since the mutual evaluation. The FATF agreed to rerate Recommendation 5 to Compliant (originally largely compliant), Recommendation 8 to Largely compliant (originally partially compliant), and to maintain the ratings of Partially Compliant for Recommendation 7 and Compliant for Recommendation 21.

The FATF welcomes the steps that Belgium has taken to improve its technical compliance with Recommendations 6, 7, 13, 14, 23, 34 and 40; however, the progress was insufficient to justify a re-rating of these Recommendations.

Technical Compliance

Ratings which reflect the extent to which a country has implemented the technical requirements of the FATF Recommendations.

C = compliant   |   LC = largely compliant     |   PC = partially compliant   |   NC = non-compliant

Earlier reports

Belgium's measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing

23 Apr 2015

This report provides a summary of the anti-money laundering (AML) / counter-terrorist financing (CFT) measures in place in Belgium as at the date of the on-site visit (30 June to 15 July 2014). The report analyses the level of compliance with the FATF 40 Recommendations and the level of effectiveness of Belgium’s AML/CFT system, and provides recommendations on how the system could be strengthened.

Related materials

The FATF Recommendations

The FATF Recommendations are the basis on which all countries should meet the shared objective of tackling money laundering, terrorist financing and the financing of proliferation. The FATF calls upon all countries to effectively implement these measures in their national systems.

Mutual Evaluations

The FATF conducts peer reviews of each member on an ongoing basis to assess levels of implementation of the FATF Recommendations, providing an in-depth description and analysis of each country’s system for preventing criminal abuse of the financial system
ESAAMLG Logo

FATF Methodology for assessing compliance with the FATF Recommendations and the effectiveness of AML/CFT systems

The FATF Methodology for assessing compliance with the FATF Recommendations and the effectiveness of AML/CFT systems sets out the evaluation process.