Financial Action Task Force

Financial Action Task Force

#GS 02 International Relations

For Prelims

Financial Action Task Force

  • The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog.
  • It is an inter-governmental body which sets international standards that aim to prevent these illegal activities and the harm they cause to society.
  • They perform frequent peer-reviewed evaluations of countries called Mutual Evaluations (ME) to assess the performance of the countries against the standards it sets.
  • These reviews are conducted by FATF and FATF-Style Regional Bodies (FSRBs) and are then published as Mutual Evaluation Reports (MERs).
  • The FATF was established in July 1989 at the G-7 Summit in Paris, with an aim to examine and develop measures to combat money laundering.
  • After the 9/11 attacks, the FATF in October 2001 expanded its mandate to incorporate efforts to combat terrorist financing.
  • In April 2012, it added efforts to counter the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
  • The FATF currently comprises 37 member jurisdictions and 2 regional organisations.

The members of FATF:

  • Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, European Commission, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Gulf Co-operation Council, Hong Kong (China), Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Kingdom of Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, United Kingdom and United States.
  • Indonesia is given observer status.
  • FATF has suspended the membership of the Russian Federation due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.