Compliance
Compliance Corner: FATF, Malta

The Mediterranean island - a former UK colony and now a European Union member state - has been placed on a so-called "grey list" by the FATF. It is being scrutinised for progress on AML controls.
The Financial Action Task Force, the inter-governmental body
fighting money laundering, has placed the European Union member
state Malta on its “increased monitoring list,” the so-called
grey list.
The new head of the world's anti-money-laundering
standard-setter, Dr Marcus Pleyer of Germany, recently announced
at a press conference that Ghana had made significant progress in
solving its AML deficiencies and that the African country - which
had an on-site visit from FATF inspectors during the coronavirus
crisis - would no longer linger on the grey list. Ghana is a
member of GIABA, West Africa's FATF-style regional body or
FSRB.
Mauritius and Botswana are both on the list but have made
improvements in their AML regimes and will receive inspectors as
soon as possible, depending on the coronavirus situation. Pleyer
said that the FATF hoped to publish the subsequent reports in
October.
Pleyer then discussed the countries that he and his colleagues
had just placed on the list - Haiti, the Philippines, South Sudan
and Malta. They have all promised to complete “action plans.”
However, Pleyer singled Malta out for comment.
"Malta underwent a mutual evaluation or peer review in 2019 -
that's the starting point. The final report outlined a large
number of serious concerns. Since then, Malta has made good
progress in a number of areas. However, serious issues
remain.
"These include issues concern criminal texts and related
money-laundering cases. Malta's financial intelligence unit [FIU]
needs to support law-enforcement authorities to pursue these
kinds of cases and focus their analysis there.
"The Maltese authorities also need to ensure that beneficial
ownership information is accurate and up-to-date. This often
relates to anonymous shell companies. If information regarding
the true ownership of these companies is inaccurate, the
authorities need to apply dissuasive sanctions."
Pleyer warned the Maltese authorities not to “downplay” the
importance of corrective measures.