Legs and Regs

The Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (Moneyval) published its first enhanced follow-up report on Latvia’s compliance with the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) anti-money laundering (AML) and counterterrorist financing (CTF) Recommendations.

According to the report, Moneyval has re-rated Latvia largely compliant on the following recommendations: Recommendation 6 on targeted financial sanctions related to terrorism and terrorist financing; Recommendation 7 on targeted financial sanctions related to proliferation; Recommendation 8 on non-profit organizations; Recommendation 10 on customer due diligence; Recommendation 22 on customer due diligence requirements for non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs); Recommendation 26 on regulation and supervision of financial institutions; Recommendation 28 on the regulation and supervision of DNFBPs; Recommendation 32 on cash couriers; Recommendation 39 on extradition; and Recommendation 40 on other forms of international cooperation.

The report also covers Latvia’s progress in implementing new requirements connected to FATF Recommendations that changed since the adoption of its mutual evaluation report. Two of the them, Recommendation 18 on internal controls and foreign branches and Recommendation 21 on tipping-off and confidentiality, remain unchanged at largely compliant. Latvia’s rating for Recommendation 2 is now listed as compliant following the implementation of the new requirements.

In total, the changes reflect that Latvia is now compliant with seven of the 40 FATF Recommendations and largely compliant with 33 of them.

The report states that Latvia will remain in enhanced follow-up and will continue to report back to Moneyval regarding its progress to improve its AML/CTF regime.