Filenews 2 May 2024
Further progress in tackling money laundering and combating terrorist financing from Cyprus, finds the Committee of Experts on Evaluation of Measures on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing of the Council of Europe (Moneyval) in a new evaluation report published today.
In particular, the Committee notes that Cyprus has improved its level of compliance with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendation 15 on new technologies, as well as progress towards improving the level of compliance with Financial Action Task Force Recommendation 8 on non-profit organisations.
As stated in a press release, as of November 2022, Cyprus has improved the regime applicable to virtual asset service providers with only a few shortcomings remaining. In addition, several steps have been taken to assess the nonprofit sector's exposure to terrorist financing and to strengthen surveillance activities, although these have not been fully implemented.
While the assessment of recommendation 8 is maintained as partially compliant, Cyprus has been upgraded to "largely compliant" from "partially compliant" with regard to recommendation 15.
More generally, Cyprus has made progress in addressing most of the technical compliance weaknesses identified in the 2019 Joint Assessment Report.
Thus, out of a total of 40 recommendations, Cyprus scores Compliant on 16, Largely Compliant on 21 and Partially Compliant on 3.
Cyprus has met the broader expectation to correct most technical compliance weaknesses at the end of the third year of its assessment.
Finally, Cyprus will inform the Commission in May 2025 on the progress it has presented towards strengthening the anti-money laundering framework and the fight against terrorist financing.
CNA
