The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, (FATF)at its plenary meeting held in Singapore, made decisions on the status of Monaco, Venezuela, Turkey and Jamaica.
Monaco and Venezuela have been added to the gray list of jurisdictions subject to enhanced controls. FATF representatives have identified significant shortcomings in the anti-money laundering regime of these countries, but their authorities have committed themselves to implementing an action plan to address these problems. Being on the “grey list” will reduce confidence in these jurisdictions on the part of potential investors, trading partners and international financial institutions. This will be especially painful for Monaco, a state with the world’s largest “density” of billionaires and millionaires, whose financial institutions manage funds many times greater than the national GDP.
At the same time, FATF excluded Turkey and Jamaica from its “grey list” . Official Ankara in 2021 did not agree that its economy requires “strengthened monitoring” and called its inclusion in the “gray list” unfair, but agreed to fulfill all FATF requirements. The Turkish authorities were jubilant at the Panel's decision. The change in status will dramatically increase the country's investment attractiveness.
“We succeeded,” Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek proudly wrote on his social networks.
“Thanks to this development, international investors' confidence in our country's financial system has become even stronger,” said Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz.
In addition, during the plenary meeting, FATF representatives stated that India has achieved a “high level of technical compliance” with the requirements of the Group. Experts say New Delhi is making good progress in understanding the financial risks of money laundering and terrorism, international cooperation and stripping criminals of their assets, and measures to combat the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. India's praise comes amid accusations from some human rights activists that New Delhi is allegedly misusing anti-money laundering laws to put pressure on civil society organizations. However, FATF representatives apparently did not find any evidence to support such allegations.
Despite the attempts of representatives of the Ukrainian authorities to make further accusations against Moscow, the FATF did not make any decisions related to Russia in Singapore, seeing no grounds for including the Russian Federation on the “gray” or “black” lists.
