13 June 2025
FATF ¦ Outcomes Joint FATF-MONEYVAL Plenary, 12-13 June 2025
FATF-MONEYVAL Joint Plenary Advances Global AML/CFT Agenda, Revises Cross-Border Payment Rules, and Updates Monitoring Lists
Overview and Context
The joint FATF-MONEYVAL Plenary held in Strasbourg on 13 June 2025 delivered a series of consequential decisions that will shape global anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, and counter-proliferation financing efforts for years to come. Chaired by FATF President Elisa de Anda Madrazo and MONEYVAL Chair Nicola Muccioli, the two-day session gathered the FATF Global Network — representing more than 200 jurisdictions and observers — for intensive technical discussions focused on payment transparency, targeted monitoring, financial inclusion, and emerging illicit finance threats.
Revisions to Recommendation 16: Cross-Border Payments and Transparency
A centerpiece outcome was the approval of changes to Recommendation 16 of the FATF Standards, aimed squarely at improving the integrity and efficiency of cross-border payments. The revised standard enhances clarity on payer and payee information for transfers over USD/EUR 1,000, streamlines the required data within payment messages, and introduces new expectations for using technology to reduce fraud and errors. These reforms are aligned with the G20 agenda to make payments faster, cheaper, more transparent, and more accessible, while sustaining robust safeguards against illicit finance. The updated standard will be published on 18 June 2025, with financial institutions expected to comply by 2030 — an implementation horizon that underscores the scale of systems and process changes many firms will need to undertake. FATF signaled that the revisions have been developed with attention to privacy and data protection, and in close consultation with civil society and industry, to ensure that stronger controls do not unduly burden access to the formal financial system.
Risk-Based Approach and Financial Inclusion
The Plenary also reaffirmed a risk-based approach as the backbone of effective AML/CFT/CPF regimes, endorsing updated guidance to advance financial inclusion. This guidance offers practical pathways to apply simplified measures where risks are demonstrably lower and proposes ways to address de-risking practices that have excluded entire categories of customers or regions from essential services. Complementing this, FATF approved a new national risk assessment toolkit and aligned its assessment methodology with the earlier enhancements to Recommendation 1. Together, these steps are intended to bring more activity into supervisory view, encourage proportionate controls, and expand access for the estimated 1.4 billion unbanked people worldwide.
Monitoring Actions: Additions and Removals
Monitoring actions were another major focus. The Plenary removed Croatia, Mali, and the United Republic of Tanzania from FATF’s list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring, following successful on-site visits and completion of action plans. These countries will continue working with their regional bodies to maintain momentum. At the same time, Bolivia and the Virgin Islands (UK) were added to the list, signaling strategic deficiencies that require time-bound remediation. Updated statements on high-risk and other monitored jurisdictions were issued, and the ongoing suspension of the Russian Federation’s membership remains in effect. FATF reiterated its call for vigilance against efforts to circumvent measures related to Russia, highlighting both current and emerging risks to the international financial system.
Assessments and Follow-Up: Latvia and MONEYVAL Compliance Enhancing Procedures (CEPs)
On the assessment front, the meeting marked a significant milestone with the adoption of the Council of Europe—MONEYVAL mutual evaluation report of Latvia, the first under the new round of evaluations that more closely scrutinizes how effectively countries mitigate risks in practice. The report is slated for publication in late 2025 following a quality and consistency review. MONEYVAL also reviewed progress by Czechia, Georgia, and the Slovak Republic under its Compliance Enhancing Procedures, each addressing moderate shortcomings in one core Recommendation, with further reporting due in December 2025.
Strategic Initiatives on Proliferation and Terrorist Financing
The Plenary advanced several strategic initiatives to strengthen responses to evolving threats. It approved a forthcoming report on complex proliferation financing and sanctions evasion schemes, designed to update and deepen existing guidance on counter-proliferation financing for both public and private sector practitioners. In parallel, FATF endorsed publication of the most extensive global assessment to date of terrorist financing risks, drawing on contributions from over 80 jurisdictions and mapping how terrorist actors raise, move, store, and spend funds in 2025, with projections for the next three to five years. Later this month, FATF will release its 6th Targeted Update on implementation of standards for virtual assets and virtual asset service providers — an area where supervisory expectations and enforcement intensity continue to rise.
Protecting the Non-Profit Sector from Unintended Consequences
Recognizing the importance of safeguarding legitimate civil society activity, FATF agreed new procedures to prevent the misapplication of AML/CFT measures to non-profit organisations. The process is designed to detect and correct NPO-related unintended consequences wherever they arise in evaluations and follow-up, leveraging both FATF and the broader Global Network to ensure timely resolution.
International Cooperation and Capacity Building
International cooperation remained a consistent theme. FATF approved new resources developed with the Egmont Group, Interpol, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to bolster cross-border detection, investigation, and prosecution of money laundering. On the sidelines, a donor and technical assistance forum convened to align support for the Global Network, while leaders of regional bodies met to deepen cohesion and share operational insights. Participation by Kenya, the Cayman Islands, and Senegal under the guest initiative continued to broaden perspectives and account for regional specificities in global standard-setting.
Implications for Financial Institutions
For financial institutions and compliance teams, the takeaways are clear. The revision of Recommendation 16 sets a long runway but will demand early planning across data architecture, messaging standards, sanctions screening, and fraud controls. The inclusion guidance and risk assessment toolkit will support more calibrated onboarding and monitoring, potentially easing access for lower-risk segments without compromising vigilance. The updates to monitoring lists underscore the fluidity of jurisdictional risk and the importance of agile country risk management. Finally, forthcoming reports on proliferation financing, terrorist financing, and virtual assets will translate into fresh typologies, red flags, and supervisory expectations — materials that should feed directly into program tuning, training, and transaction monitoring scenarios.
Dive deeper
- FATF ¦ Outcomes Joint FATF-MONEYVAL Plenary, 12-13 June 2025 ¦ Link