Combating money laundering, terrorist finance beefed up

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which is an international body active in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing said that the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing is overall at a relatively good level in Finland, but there are also shortcomings.

The FATF made the observation in its Mutual Evaluation Report of Finland published on Tuesday, said a government press release.

“Finland is increasing the public resources used to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. Emphasis will be placed on the supervision of the financial sector. Also, the activities of the Financial Intelligence Unit will be made more effective,” said the Ministry of the Interior’s Permanent Secretary Ilkka Salmi, who led the Finnish delegation at the FATF Plenary in February 2019.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 that sets international standards for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Its members comprise 36 states and 2 regional organisations, for example the European Commission. It also has dozens of associate members and observers around the world, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Finland has been a member since 1991.

There are 40 recommendations at the heart of the FATF’s activities that members are bound to comply with. The FATF monitors the progress of its members in implementing the recommendations by carrying out mutual evaluations through peer reviews.

The evaluations include analyses of the level of compliance with the recommendations and the level of effectiveness of preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing. The evaluation of Finland was carried out in summer 2018 and the evaluation report was adopted at the FATF Plenary in Paris in February 2019.

In its evaluation, the FATF analysed 11 different fields of money laundering and terrorist financing. In a four-tier rating, Finland received the highest rating for international cooperation in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. The second highest rating in the evaluation was received for the assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing risks, cooperation between authorities, collection and use of financial intelligence on money laundering and terrorist financing, and investigation and prosecution of money laundering.