On Thursday 2 May, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL) published two follow-up reports - one on Cyprus and the other on Croatia - which show improvements on the findings made in 2019 for Cyprus and in 2021 for Croatia.
As far as Cyprus is concerned, progress has been made in complying with MONEYVAL standards in the areas of new technologies and non-profit organisations.
Cyprus has improved the virtual assets regime and introduced a number of measures to assess the non-profit sector’s exposure to the risk of terrorist financing.
MONEYVAL points out that these measures have yet to be fully implemented.
Croatia has also improved its measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, notes MONEYVAL.
Numerous steps have been taken in terms of monitoring and surveillance.
In addition, new procedures have strengthened capacities for international cooperation.
Progress was also noted in adopting a national action plan, introducing a registration regime and fit and proper requirements for virtual assets service providers (VASPs), improving beneficial ownership registers, streamlining access to information on legal persons and amending sanctions for non-compliance with transparency requirements.
Croatia will continue to be subject to MONEYVAL’s enhanced monitoring procedure, and will have to report on the progress it has made by December 2024.
MONEYVAL is the Council of Europe’s monitoring body. It assesses 33 states and territories and makes recommendations to national authorities on the improvements needed to their systems for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Links to reports on Cyprus: https://aeur.eu/f/c1k ; and Croatia: https://aeur.eu/f/c1l (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)