The Council of Europe (COE)’s financial supervisory authority MONEYVAL has published its report on Malta’s AML/CFT progress in 2020. The report reveals that Malta’s AML/CFT framework has improved, with significant improvement in its compliance with the FATF Standards. Highlights from this report are discussed below.
Malta’s 2019 assessment had revealed deficiencies with technical compliance related to preventative measures, transparency of legal entities, supervision and international co-operation. In the new 2020 report, MONEYVAL has given Malta higher international compliance ratings in these areas. On 9 of the FATF Recommendations related to these areas, Malta’s rating has improved form ‘partially compliant’ to ‘largely compliant’ and ‘compliant’. Furthermore, Malta has now become ‘largely compliant’ on the FATF’s Recommendation related to the virtual assets sector.
Overall, Malta has successfully addressed most of its AML/CFT deficiencies within 2 years of adoption of the mutual evaluation report. The country is now fully compliant with 12 of the 40 FATF Recommendations, and largely compliant with the remaining 28. MONEYVAL has decided to keep Malta in enhanced follow-up and re-evaluate its AML/CFT progress in two years.
Source: Council of Europe