The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) concluded its latest Plenary in Vancouver on Friday.
With the removal of Myanmar from its **Non Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT)** list, the FATF announced that the *”process has been very successful.”* All 23 jurisdictions that were listed as NCCTs in 2000 and 2001 are no longer on the NCCT list, *”as they have made significant progress and many others strengthened their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing systems.”* Effectively, they are no longer considered non-cooperative by the FATF.
The inter-governmental body noted, however, that it remains vigilant on international cooperation issues and will not hesitate to act if a country poses a serious threat to the international effort to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
At the Plenary, the FATF issued two **reports on money laundering methods and vulnerabilities** in specific sectors.
• The report on new payment technologies (prepaid cards, Internet payment systems, mobile payments, and digital precious metals) found that, while there is a legitimate market demand for these payment methods, money laundering and terrorist financing vulnerabilities exist. Specifically, cross-border providers of new payment methods may pose more risk than providers operating within a jurisdiction. The report recommends continued vigilance to further assess the impact of evolving technologies on cross-border and domestic regulatory frameworks.
• The study of corporate vehicles found evidence of their misuse for money laundering / terrorist financing. The report identifies a number of risk factors and concludes that this misuse could be significantly reduced if governments have access to information about the beneficial owner, the source of assets, and the business objective of the company or trust.
These reports will be available on the FATF website in the coming weeks. The FATF also announced that underway are additional typologies studies on money laundering and terrorist financing on various areas including real estate, terrorist financing, value-added-tax fraud and drug trafficking.