The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 which has objectives to set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system. The FATF issues two statements at the end of each plenary meeting, in February, June, and October. These statements provide a short summary of the recent actions taken in accordance with each jurisdiction’s action plan, as well as a list of the strategic deficiencies remaining to be addressed. The two statements mirror the changed levels of risk posed at any given period by the insufficiencies in the jurisdictions under review.
Should one wish to be removed from monitoring, a jurisdiction must significantly address all the components of its action plan. Once the FATF has determined that a jurisdiction has done accordingly, the organization will plan an on-site appointment to check that the execution of the needed legal, regulatory and other reforms is happening and there is the necessary political commitment and institutional capacity to continue implementation. If the on-site visit has a positive result, the FATF will resolve on removing the jurisdiction from public identification at the next FATF plenary. The concerned jurisdiction will then remain working within the FATF or the relevant FSRB, through its standard follow-up process, to advance its AML/CFT regime.
The Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) of Mauritius was accepted by the FATF in April 2018 and later permitted by the Council of Ministers in July 2018. This follow-up report judges the improvement made by Mauritius to resolve the technical compliance limitations recognized in its MER. New ratings are given when adequate improvement has been made. A Communiqé released by the FSC, that is the 2nd Enhanced Follow-up Report & Technical Compliance Re-rating of Mauritius was issued on 21 October 2019 by the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) succeeding the assessment by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Global Community for quality and consistency.
It is further noted that there has been significant progress to addressing the deficiencies and the country has been upgraded on 19 out of the total 40 FATF recommendations, adding on to the 11 upgrades prior in May. With regards to compliance, Mauritius is either compliant or largely compliant to 35 of 40 recommendations, inclusive of the big 6 recommendations.
Read more at: FATF Recommendations ESAAMLG Report