(13 February 2019) – Today, the European Commission has adopted its new list of 23 third countries with strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing frameworks.
The aim of this list is to protect the EU financial system by better preventing money laundering and terrorist financing risks.
As a result of the listing, banks and other entities covered by EU anti-money laundering rules will be required to apply increased checks (‘due diligence’) on financial operations involving customers and financial institutions from these high-risk third countries to better identify any suspicious money flows.
The list has been established on the basis of an analysis of 54 priority jurisdictions, which was prepared by the Commission in consultation with the Member States and made public on 13 November 2018.