De-risking will remain a priority for the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) while correspondent banking issues and the balance between financial inclusion and anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) compliance requirements will be key areas of interest.

The task force will concentrate its de-risking efforts in four specific projects according to a statement issued at the end of a three-day meeting held in Paris in October.

Correspondent risks

The first area of focus will concentrate on developing guidance to clarify how to properly identify and manage risk in the context of correspondent banking and remittances.

The task force will also be looking to develop guidance to help money remitters identify and manage their risks, and to help banks evaluate and manage the risks ofproviding financial services to money remitters. This guidance also aims to help governments supervise these activities.

Compliance versus inclusion

Another area the task force is interested in is developing best practices on appropriate customer due diligence to facilitate financial inclusion in a manner that strikes an appropriate balance with AML/CFT objectives.

The FATF also wants to revise the relevant standards to help governments properly identify those non-profit organisations which are most vulnerable to terrorist financing abuse, and address those risks in a proportionate way.

The FATF aims to complete its work on these four projects in 2016.

The full FATF statement can be found here.

Categories: Trade Based Financial crimes News