Consultations: UK Treasury on FATF review of R40 +9

UK Treasury Notice 4 November 2010

The UK's anti-money laundering regulations give effect to international recommendations made by the Financial Action Task Force (the FATF).

The FATF is the leading inter-governmental body that sets global standards on tackling money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The FATF was established in 1989 in response to mounting concern over money laundering, producing a set of 40 recommendations on action countries needed to take to combat this crime. In 2001 the FATF's remit was expanded to include the development of nine special standards to detect, prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism. The UK is a founding member of the FATF and played an instrumental role in its development.

The FATF is now reviewing those standards.
This is important because the FATF strongly influences the UKs anti-money laundering approach. The FATF has concluded the first year of its two year review and has issued a short (15 page) paper outlining proposed changes to the FATF 40+9 standards. HM Treasury is taking this opportunity to draw it to the attention of UK practitioners - the paper is available in electronic form at http://www.fatf-gafi.org/dataoecd/3/30/46266717.pdf

The FATF is arranging a meeting of its own consultative forum on 22 November this year. Although for practical reasons it is not possible for individual UK practitioners to attend this meeting the FATF forum is made up of a broad range of regional/international industry representatives with the goal of obtaining the widest possible input from all sectors. We encourage practitioners to draw any immediate concerns to the attention of their representative bodies in advance of the meeting this month. Firms should pass views to their industry representatives at a European/International level (perhaps going through their national representatives to do this).
The FATF consultation on the proposed changes to the standards asks for written responses by 7 January 2011.
We encourage practitioners and UK industry representatives to respond to this call for views from the private sector by writing to the FATF.
(Contact details for the FATF are in their document).
The proposals once adopted will become part of the globally accepted standards on AML and it is important the FATF is able to take account of
industry views in the course of developing these proposals.
You may send a copy of any representations you make to Sandra Holben at HM Treasury,