The president of the Financial Action Task Force, the world's anti-money-laundering standard-setter, has outlined his expectations of co-operation from the private sector at a meeting in Swakopmund in Namibia.

The president of the Financial Action Task Force, the world's anti-money-laundering standard-setter, has outlined his expectations of co-operation from the private sector at a meeting in Swakopmund in Namibia.

Vladimir Nechaev, a Russian civil servant who used to work for Rosfinmonitoring (Russia's financial intelligence unit), told delegates that partnership between public authorities and banks and other financial institutions was 'increasingly important' and that he wanted firms to share their experiences and views with his organisation to a hitertho-unknown degree. There is now a global FATF private-sector consultative forum. Nechaev praised financial institutions as 'lead actors' in the fight against money-laundering and looked forward to greater dialogue with lawyers, trust and company service providers and accountants.

"The implementation of the revised standards will also require a continuous dialogue and consultation with the private sector," he said, referring to the new methods that the FATF is applying to 'mutual evaluation' of countries' compliance with its so-called 40 recommendations which received a major overhaul in February 2012. These new methods include a new round of assessments taking place this year which focuses less on the adequacy of countries' laws and much more on their efficacy. Nechaev wanted countries to invite their financial institutions to contribute to the development of their national risk assessments. He also wanted banks to use the FATF's 'mutual evaluation' reports of countries much more in their country risk evaluations, although he shrouded this in code language. "This information will prove useful for private stakeholders, as it will provide them with a global appreciation of the whole of an AML/CFT national system, and how well it works," he said.

"We need to factor in the 'informality' element in our regional discussion to ensure a level playing field between all private sector players," he added mysteriously, without further comment.

The blacklist: an update

Over the last year, the FATF removed eight countries that it thought had 'deficiencies' in their financial crime regimes and against which member-countries should take 'action'. These were: Trinidad and Tobago in October 2012; Ghana and Venezuela in 2013; and Bolivia, Brunei Darussalam, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand in June.

The countries on its blacklist now are: Ecuador, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sao Tomé and Principe, Syria, Tanzania, Turkey, Vietnam, and Yemen. Only Iran and North Korea are on its much more serious 'countermeasures' list - a testament to the final victory of US foreign policy over the standard-setting body after many years of resistance from the other states.

For the first time, in line with aggressive US tax politices that include FATCA, the FATF's rules are also dedicated to tax crimes as predicate offenses to money laundering. Another US favourite that the FATF now targets is the financing of 'weapons of mass destruction'.

The Group of 8 chases pieces of 8

Nechaev's initiative is linked to a new G8 policy which seeks to create a 'sub-Saharan Africa public-private sector dialogue' about financial crime which, it is hoped, will help to raise the political importance of regimes that are to the G8's liking and 'facilitate exchange of technical knowledge,' presumably of the surveillance variety, in the region 'and across the G8.' Details of this policy are so far sketchy.