FinCEN Issues Updated FATF Deficient Countries
On July 1, 2021, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a news release to announce updates to the FATF list of jurisdictions with strategic anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism and counter-proliferation financing deficiencies. As updates to the FATF list were previously issued as advisories, FinCEN explained that this news release should be treated the same way as prior advisories - implying that future updates to the FATF list will continue to come as news releases rather than advisories.
Remaining on the list are Albania, Barbados, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Mauritius, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Senegal, Syria, Uganda, Yemen, and Zimbabwe. Ghana was removed from the list while Haiti, Malta, the Philippines, and South Sudan were all added to the list. Iran and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea remain as High-Risk Jurisdictions.
FinCEN requests that financial institutions reference this advisory by including the key term “FATF FIN-2021-A003” in SAR field 2 (Filing Institution Note to FinCEN) and the narrative to indicate a connection between the suspicious activity being reported and the activities highlighted in this advisory.
The FinCEN news release can be found here.