On October 18, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) published its updated list of jurisdictions that have strategic anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) deficiencies for which they have developed an action plan with the FATF. The FATF updates this list three times a year, the last update being in June 2019.

Since June, the following jurisdictions are no longer subject to monitoring and have been removed from the list:

• Ethiopia

• Sri Lanka

• Tunisia

The following jurisdictions continue to have strategic deficiencies and remain on the list:

• the Bahamas

• Botswana

• Cambodia

• Ghana

• Pakistan

• Panama

• Syria

• Trinidad and Tobago

• Yemen

And the following jurisdictions have been added to the list:

• Iceland

• Mongolia

• Zimbabwe

Each jurisdiction on the list has an agreed action plan with FATF, with commitments ranging from ‘improve understanding’ of AML/CFT in the jurisdiction, to specific regulatory changes.

This is not the list of countries for which financial institutions are required to undertake enhanced due diligence. (For EU and UK firms, for example, that list is maintained by the European Commission, here.) FATF noted that firms should take this information into account when conducting money laundering risk assessments and due diligence.

The October list is available here. The next list will be published in February 2020.