The Financial Action Task Force leads global action to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
During a plenary this week the FATF is expected to discuss Malta’s so-called grey-listing, “jurisdictions under increased monitoring”.
In June 2021, Malta made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and MONEYVAL to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime. At its February 2022 Plenary, the FATF made the initial determination that Malta has substantially completed its action plan and warrants an on-site visit to verify that the implementation of Malta’s AML/CFT reforms has begun and is being sustained, and that the necessary political commitment remains in place to sustain implementation and improvement in the future.
Malta has made the following key reforms: (1) continuing to demonstrate that beneficial ownership information is accurate and that, where appropriate, effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions, commensurate with the ML/TF risks, are applied to legal persons if information provided is found to be inaccurate; and ensuring that effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions are applied to gatekeepers when they do not comply with their obligations to obtain accurate and up-to-date beneficial ownership information; (2) enhancing the use of the FIU’s financial intelligence to support authorities pursuing criminal tax and related money laundering cases, including by clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the Commissioner for Revenue and the FIU; and (3) increasing the focus of the FIU’s analysis on these types of offences, to produce intelligence that helps Maltese law enforcement detect and investigate cases in line with Malta’s identified ML risks related to tax evasion.
The FATF recently conducted an on-site visit to Malta.
