The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has published its agenda for its forthcoming plenary session. Throughout the week’s meetings which includes the Plenary meeting on 22-24 June, delegates from the more than 190 members of the FATF and the FATF-Style Regional Bodies plus the UN, IMF World Bank and other partners, will work through a full agenda that includes:
- Global response to terrorist financing. Delegates will discuss progress in implementing the consolidated strategy agreed in February and the report on this to the G20 meeting in July. As part of this, delegates are expected to finalise a handbook on requesting freezing action from FATF countries and risk indicators to help the private sector to detect terrorist financing.
- Transparency and beneficial ownership. Delegates will discuss proposals for action to improve countries’ effective implementation of measures to improve access to beneficial ownership information. The ‘Panama papers’ were a timely reminder of the scale of abuse of companies and trusts for a range of illicit purposes. Improving transparency has become a global priority, and FATF will make proposals for improving implementation of the FATF standards to the G20 in October.
- Non-Profit Organisations. Delegates will discuss the FATF Standard concerning non-profit organisations (Recommendation 8), to protect the sector from abuse and support its activities, in line with effective implementation of the FATF’s risk-based approach.
- The outcomes of the mutual evaluation reports of Austria, Canada and Singapore. These reports assess each country’s measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, and make recommendations to further strengthen these measures. These reports are expected to be published within two months of the plenary meeting, subject to the discussion in Busan.
The FATF sets standards and promotes effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism and proliferation.
The FATF statement and related information is available here.