Anti-money laundering experts MONEYVAL publish 2021 report

Governments need to step up their efforts and coordination to combat money laundering and terrorist financing by adopting stricter regulation and supervision of the virtual assets sector and the specialised “gatekeeper” professions, such as lawyers, accountants and other services providers who often help launderers, according to the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing body MONEYVAL.

In its annual report for 2021, MONEYVAL examines the action required to improve the combat against money laundering. It also assesses compliance with international standards and developments in the legal and institutional frameworks to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing in the 34 jurisdictions it monitors.

The Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of anti-money laundering measures and the financing of terrorism (MONEYVAL) is a monitoring body of the Council of Europe, which includes 36 member States and jurisdictions. MONEYVAL peer pressure motivates its members to constantly update their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) legislation, institutions and operational practices. 

MONEYVAL’s reports are public and widely used by financial institutions around the globe in determining whether to conduct business in a jurisdiction. The international AML/CFT standards monitored by MONEYVAL are defined by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). MONEYVAL is an FATF-style regional body (FSRB) and an associate member of the FATF. 

This Annual Report provides a comprehensive overview of key compliance trends in the MONEYVAL member-jurisdictions, and presents major MONEYVAL activities and results achieved in 2021 in the area of mutual evaluations, follow-up, research typologies, training, as well as external and internal engagement. (source/photo: coe.int)

The annual report is available here

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Editorial

Editorial
George Kazoleas, Lawyer

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