The United Arab Emirates could be removed from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) grey list in the next few days. This is reported by AML Intelligence, citing its own sources at FATF headquarters.
According to AML Intelligence, the Group's management believes that the UAE authorities have taken all necessary measures to lift the country from the enhanced monitoring regime and remove it from the "grey list".
FATF included the United Arab Emirates on the "grey list" in March 2022. The country was to be under enhanced supervision until it eliminated "strategic weaknesses" that provoke high levels of economic crime. Given the UAE's growing role in the global economy, experts at the time called FATF's decision "radical".
In order to leave the "grey list", the political leadership of the UAE has carried out large-scale reforms and serious diplomatic work. The UAE changed the rules of corporate law, introduced new requirements for tax residency, created an anti-money laundering special prosecutor's office, and began collecting data on business beneficiaries.
In addition, UAE officials have made a number of visits to countries considered key FATF members, including the United States and Switzerland. They negotiated on critical anti-money laundering issues, such as sanctions circumvention schemes and cryptocurrency regulation.
Last summer, the FATF highlighted the UAE's progress in a number of areas, but downgraded the Gulf state in the area of new technologies, including virtual assets. That problem now appears to have been resolved as well. The fate of the United Arab Emirates is to be decided at the Group's February plenary week in Paris.
