FATF Plenary Concludes in Brisbane

On June 26, 2015, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) concluded its plenary meeting, which occurred in Brisbane, Australia on June 24-26 under the Australian Presidency.The main issues dealt with by this Plenary were:   issuing a statement and set out a future work plan on "de-risking"; producing two public documents identifying jurisdictions that may pose a risk to the international financial system (e.g., jurisdictions with strategic anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) deficiencies for which a call for action applies and jurisdictions with strategic AML/CFT deficiencies for which they have developed an action plan with the FATF); continuing its work on terrorist financing, which remains a priority; receiving an update on AML/CFT improvements in Indonesia; discussing the mutual evaluation report on compliance with the FATF Recommendations of Malaysia;   and welcoming the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as an observer to the FATF. In addition, the plenary adopted and published revised best practices on combating the abuse of non-profit organizations (Recommendation 8); guidance for a risk-based approach to virtual currencies; typologies report on the money laundering / terrorist financing risks and vulnerabilities associated with gold; and indicating its support for a proposal from the Republic of Korea to establish an AML/CFT training and research institute in Korea.