The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has updated its list of monitored jurisdictions, adding Bolivia and the British Virgin Islands (BVI) to its grey list while removing Croatia, Mali and Tanzania.
Napier AI, a provider of a next generation intelligent compliance platform, recently delved into the updates and what they mean.
FATF serves as the global standard-setter in AML and CFT compliance, using its grey and black lists to highlight jurisdictions that fall short in addressing financial crime risks. Countries on the grey list have “strategic deficiencies” in their frameworks but are actively working with the FATF to resolve them, facing reputational and operational impacts during the monitoring period.
The black list, which currently includes North Korea, Iran and Myanmar, is reserved for jurisdictions with significant unresolved deficiencies, requiring FATF members to apply enhanced due diligence or countermeasures on financial transactions involving these nations.
In its 13 June 2025 update, the FATF cited identified shortcomings in Bolivia’s and the BVI’s AML/CFT systems, resulting in their addition to the grey list. Meanwhile, Croatia, Mali and Tanzania demonstrated sufficient progress to meet FATF requirements, earning their removal from increased monitoring.
Countries under grey list monitoring continue working on time-bound action plans with FATF or regional bodies, aiming to address key gaps without disrupting legitimate financial services such as remittance flows and humanitarian transactions.
Bolivia has made progress in enhancing risk assessments, improving financial intelligence, and increasing the seizure of criminal proceeds. However, FATF reports indicate that Bolivia must still advance its use of special investigative techniques in money laundering probes, improve supervision of high-risk sectors, and ensure accurate, enforceable beneficial ownership data to secure removal from the grey list, Napier AI explained.
The BVI has taken steps to strengthen its compliance posture since its November 2023 Mutual Evaluation Report, including enhancing international cooperation and developing a counter-terrorist financing strategy, it said. It has also completed a targeted risk assessment of the non-profit sector and improved outreach to financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses.
As it moves forward, the BVI will focus on enhanced supervision of high-risk sectors such as trust and company service providers (TCSPs), virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and investment businesses, along with improving suspicious activity reporting, scaling up prosecutions aligned with its risk profile, and operationalising frameworks for managing confiscated assets, it said.
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