Cyprus, Lithuania, Croatia and Poland have improved their measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/CFT), according to the follow-up reports published by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Friday 3 May.
Out of forty recommendations, three were judged only partially compliant by the FATF in Cyprus and four in Lithuania. By contrast, Croatia and Poland have twelve and sixteen partially compliant recommendations respectively.
These two countries are still lagging behind in a number of areas: - assessing risks and applying a risk-based approach; - targeted financial sanctions linked to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; - identification and assessment of AML/CFT risks for non-profit organisations; - the identification and assessment of AML/CFT risks that may arise from the development of new products and new business practices; - internal controls, foreign branches and subsidiaries; - statistics; - penalties applicable to natural and legal persons.
Cyprus also shows the shortcomings of not-for-profit organisations. The country was judged to be partially compliant with regard to bank correspondence, like Poland, but also with regard to the powers of the prosecuting and investigating authorities.
Similarly, the recommendation on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is only partially compliant in Lithuania, as are those on targeted financial sanctions linked to terrorism and its financing. A flaw shared by Croatia.
The latter is also partially compliant on: - national cooperation and coordination; - transparency and the beneficial owners of legal entities; - implementation of international instruments; - the freezing and confiscation of criminal assets in the event of mutual legal assistance.
Lastly, Poland showed shortcomings in terms of: - terrorist financing offences; - use of third parties; - enhanced vigilance measures towards high-risk countries; - suspicious transaction report; - customer due diligence; - regulation and supervision of financial institutions; - cash couriers.
To read the monitoring report on Cyprus: https://aeur.eu/f/c3a; Lithuania: https://aeur.eu/f/c3g; Croatia: https://aeur.eu/f/c3h; and Poland: https://aeur.eu/f/c3d (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)