Impact of the FATF Recommendations and their Implementation on Financial Inclusion : Insights from Mutual Evaluations and National Risk Assessments
Financial system safeguards against money laundering and terrorist financing are crucial for the integrity of the global financial system, but these safeguards need to be crafted in such a way that they do not negatively affect financial inclusion...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/597781637558061429/Impact-of-the-FATF-Recommendations-and-their-Implementation-on-Financial-Inclusion-Insights-from-Mutual-Evaluations-and-National-Risk-Assessments http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36659 |
| Summary: | Financial system safeguards against
money laundering and terrorist financing are crucial for the
integrity of the global financial system, but these
safeguards need to be crafted in such a way that they do not
negatively affect financial inclusion and disincentive the
use of the formal financial system by ordinary individuals
and businesses. This study examines the possible unintended
consequences of the implementation of international
standards on anti-money laundering, combating the financing
of terrorism (AML-CFT) on financial inclusion objectives and
proposes ways to address any such consequences. This
examination focuses mainly on external AML-CFT compliance
evaluations, so-called mutual evaluations, led by
international organizations and the money laundering and
terrorist financing (ML-TF) risk assessments undertaken by
the countries themselves. The analysis is supplemented by
interviews with officials and private sector representatives
from three countries and by field experience and
observations from experts. The Financial Action Task Force
(FATF), the international standard setter for AML-CFT, has
been devoting increasing attention to financial inclusion
over the past decade, but this is not yet fully reflected in
country mutual evaluations. The FATF’s increasing attention
is evident in its guidance papers on financial inclusion and
digital identification (ID), and in the recognition of the
importance of financial inclusion in its 2019 mandate.
However, coverage of financial inclusion in mutual
evaluations is still uneven and mostly superficial and is
not accompanied by concrete policy recommendations. |
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