Cedar Rose Commentary on FATF Initiatives to Combat Money Laundering

Financial Action Task Force Plenary Outlines Strategic Initiatives to Combat Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing

Many of the jurisdictions placed under high scrutiny by FATF are thoroughly covered by Cedar Rose’s live and continuously updated global database of over 242 million entities that can be used to assist in discovering ultimate beneficial ownership. Cedar Rose offers a holistic solution designed to streamline and ease ultimate beneficial ownership discovery with three options listed below.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has outlined new measures to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism to foster effective AML / CFT systems following its latest plenary held in Paris, – attended by 206 global members, the IMF, the UN, and the World Bank.

Among the FATF’s strategic initiatives was the announcement of tougher global beneficial ownership rules to tackle money laundering by preventing criminals from doing nefarious activities in the guise of secret corporate structures. Countries will now have to ensure that beneficial ownership information is held by a public authority or a body functioning as a beneficial ownership registry, or as an alternative mechanism deemed as efficient as the latter. Authorities will also have to assess and mitigate the money laundering and terrorist financing risks associated with foreign companies to which their countries are exposed.

In addition, the following 23 countries have now been placed under increased monitoring by FATF and are considered ‘Jurisdictions with Strategic Deficiencies’.

Albania, Barbados, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Haiti, Jamaica, Jordan, Mali, Malta, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

The FATF has called on all countries identified as high-risk, to apply enhanced due diligence, and counter measures where necessary to protect the international financial system from the money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing (ML/TF/PF) risks. It was stressed that although significant progress has been made in some countries such as the United Arab Emirates, there are still some grey areas to be covered.

Many of the jurisdictions placed under high scrutiny by FATF are thoroughly covered by Cedar Rose’s live and continuously updated global database of over 242 million entities that can be used to assist in discovering ultimate beneficial ownership. Cedar Rose offers a holistic solution designed to streamline and ease ultimate beneficial ownership discovery with three options to identify or verify UBO information:

UBO Lookup: Access UBO information through the Cedar Rose corporate structure model. Cedar Rose can automatically identify hierarchy relationships between the subject company, its shareholders and UBOs using existing data of over 242 million entities.
UBO Discovery Lite: Cedar Rose can conduct a fresh investigation on every shareholding entity across layers of ownership to identify and/or update the information from ultimate authoritative sources.
UBO Discovery Enhanced: Cedar Rose can conduct a fresh investigation on every shareholding entity across layers of ownership to identify and/or update the information by visiting the jurisdiction’s commercial registry and retrieving the official corporate records of the company.

Companies can also enable automated UBO lookup with subscription access to Cedar Rose’s CRiS Intelligence Platform. The platform allows users on-demand access to critical credit risk and due diligence information in one single platform – reducing the time and effort needed to search through multiple fragmented sources. It’s an essential platform that can help compliance professionals uncover private company owners, identify ultimate beneficial owners (UBO) and conduct instant compliance checks against global watchlists and sanctions, politically exposed persons (PEP) and adverse media– allowing organisations to meet their compliance and regulatory requirements confidently.

Call +971 4 374 5758 to find out more about how Cedar Rose can help you stay compliant with these latest changes.

About: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog. The inter-governmental body sets international standards that aim to prevent these illegal activities and the harm they cause to society. As a policy-making body, the FATF works to generate the necessary political will to bring about national legislative and regulatory reforms in these areas.

With more than 200 countries and jurisdictions committed to implementing them. The FATF has developed the FATF Recommendations, or FATF Standards, which ensure a co-ordinated global response to prevent organised crime, corruption and terrorism. They help authorities go after the money of criminals dealing in illegal drugs, human trafficking and other crimes. The FATF also works to stop funding for weapons of mass destruction.

The FATF reviews money laundering and terrorist financing techniques and continuously strengthens its standards to address new risks, such as the regulation of virtual assets, which have spread as cryptocurrencies gain popularity. The FATF monitors countries to ensure they implement the FATF Standards fully and effectively, and holds countries to account that do not comply.

Source: https://www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/fatfgeneral/documents/outcomes-fatf-plenary-march-2022.html