By Elizabeth Hearst for AMLi
The Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering body, MONEYVAL, has praised Lithuania for its “significant progress” in level of compliance with FATF standards.
Lithuania has “improved measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing”, according to a follow-up report published by MONEYVAL today.
Following on from an assessment in 2018, Lithuania was requested to report to the body under an enhanced follow-up procedure.
MONEYVAL has now decided to re-rate Lithuania from “partially compliant” to “largely compliant” with FATF’s regulations on the regulation and supervision of financial institutions, based on the adoption of a new anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing supervision policy for financial insitutions.
The review investigated the country’s implementation of “targeted financial sanctions related to terrorism and terrorism financing, application of risk-based approach towards supervision of financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses and professions and legislation on cross-border transportation of cash”.
However, the body states that “more efforts remain necessary” for the country to meet the general expectations of MONEYVAL, despite making “commendable progress to address most of the technical compliance deficiencies” identified in its mutual evaluation report.
Lithuania has now achieved full compliance with eight of the 40 FATF Recommendations on AML/CFT. The country retains “minor deficiencies in the implementation of 25 recommendations”, where it has been awarded “largely compliant”.
The country still has “more significant deficiencies” in seven recommendations where it is rated “partially compliant”.
Lithuania will now be expected to report back to MONEYVAL on further progress of these recommendations in two years.
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