22/02/23

GLOBAL REGULATION: FATF reports “important progress” in Colombia’s AML reforms.

As published on step.org/industry-news, Wednesday 22 February, 2023.

A follow-up report from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) notes that Colombia has made progress in fixing the defects in its anti-money laundering (AML) regime since the last FATF mutual evaluation report.

FATF’s follow-up report analyses the progress made by the country since the Financial Action Task Force of Latin America (GAFILAT) prepared the Colombian mutual evaluation report (MER) in July 2018. FATF expects that countries will have “addressed most, if not all, technical compliance deficiencies before the end of the third year since the adoption of their MER”.

In the follow-up evaluation, Colombia has now been re-rated from partially to largely compliant on two Recommendations, with FATF hailing the country’s “important progress in relation to addressing the technical compliance deficiencies identified in its MER”.

The report has found that in terms of Recommendation 10, relating to customer due-diligence, Colombia has overcome any deficiencies related to financial institutions’ duty to apply due-diligence. FATF says that this has come about in particular due to Law 2195 of 2022, which establishes measures allowing the identification of beneficial ownership. Similarly, Colombia has made progress in relation to deficiencies identified by the MER around Recommendation 12, relating to politically exposed persons.

Colombia remains rated as partially compliant on Recommendation 24, regarding transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons. The report says that the country “has made important progress in the establishment of a regime for the identification and record-keeping of information of beneficial owners of legal persons established in the country” but that “certain moderate deficiencies remain, particularly in relation to the update and accuracy” of beneficial ownership information.

The country will therefore remain in the enhanced follow-up process, continuing to report to FATF and GAFILAT on the progress it is making to strengthen its implementation of AML measures.