At FATF’s February plenary meeting it:
- updated its list of high risk jurisdictions. Notably, it decided Iran has not met commitments to complete its action plan, or enact the Palermo and Terrorist Financing Conventions. As a result it has lifted its suspension of counter-measures, and has placed Iran on the full high risk jurisdiction alert until it completes its Action Plan and enacts the conventions. So Iran and North Korea are subject to enhanced due diligence and counter-measures. In other updates, Trinidad and Tobago is no longer subject to increased monitoring, but Albania, Barbados, Jamaica, Mauritius, Myanmar, Nicaragua and Uganda have all been added to the list, where they join the Bahamas, Botswana, Cambodia, Ghana, Iceland, Mongolia, Pakistan, Panama, the Yemen and Zimbabwe;
- adopted a new guidance paper on digital identity, which sets out a decision process to determine whether digital ID meets FATF’s CDD requirements;
- discussed progress on monitoring the risks of virtual assets; and
- discussed other issues such as more effective supervision at the national level, combatting the laundering of proceeds of the illegal wildlife trade and the strategic review of the Global Network assessment process.