Cypriot battle with money laundering

Cyprus has made some progress in combating money laundering and terrorist financing by partially complying with recommendations set out by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), according to a report by the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL).

According to MONEYVAL’s progress report, published on Thursday, Cypriot authorities did implement several compliance improvement measures but did not do so in time for them to be assessed at this stage. Moreover, a number of other shortcomings still need to be addressed.

MONEYVAL considered Cyprus to have fully, or to a large extent, complied with 37 of the 40 FATF recommendations. It also noted that MONEYVAL asked Cypriot authorities to report on their progress on implementing the remaining recommendations wherein Cyprus was judged to be only “partially compliant.”

The progress report examines a series of legislative, regulatory and institutional measures implemented by the Cypriot authorities in relation to risk assessment and monitoring in the nonprofit sector, as well as the evaluation of banks’ customer relations.