Financial Crime World

Title: Norway’s Significant Strides in Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Mitigation: FATF Assessment Update

Date: December 5, 2019

Norway has shown remarkable progress in enhancing its framework to counter money laundering and terrorist financing based on the latest 5th-year follow-up assessment by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). After being in the enhanced follow-up process since 2014, Norway has moved up to the regular follow-up process, as the FATF has re-rated the country on three of the five immediate outcomes.

Immediate Outcome 1: Risk Assessment and Policy Coordination

Norway has made considerable progress in assessing money laundering and terrorist financing risks and coordinating domestic efforts to combat these crimes. The FATF has upgraded its assessment of Norway’s risk assessment and policy coordination from Moderate to Substantial. Key developments include:

  • Establishing a Contact Forum to identify risks and develop mitigation strategies.
  • Focusing on operational cooperation and awareness raising efforts, particularly in vulnerable sectors like the banking sector and payment institutions.

Immediate Outcome 6: Financial Intelligence

Competent authorities in Norway have shown remarkable effectiveness in leveraging financial intelligence and relevant data for money laundering and terrorist financing investigations. The FATF has re-rated Norway from Moderate to Substantial. Some notable achievements are:

  • Nearly tripling the usage of financial intelligence reports since 2015.
  • Strengthening its capability for strategic analysis, leading to an upward trend of high-quality suspicious transactions reports.

Immediate Outcome 11: Proliferation Financing Sanctions

Norway’s initiatives to prevent individuals and entities involved in weapons of mass destruction proliferation from raising, moving, and utilizing funds, as required by UN Security Council Resolutions, have been re-evaluated as Substantial by the FATF. The country has addressed delays in implementing proliferation financing sanctions by making legislative changes and establishing a communication and coordination mechanism on these issues.

Current Achievements and Further Improvements

Norway’s latest achievements mean that it is now at a high or substantial level of effectiveness on five of the 11 immediate outcomes of an effective anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime. The country is now expected to focus on areas requiring further improvement, such as:

  • Appropriate supervision, monitoring, and regulation of financial institutions and non-financial entities.
  • Ensuring the confiscation of proceeds of crime.

Technical Compliance

Since the mutual evaluation in 2014, Norway has exhibited considerable development in technical compliance with FATF requirements. Previous re-ratings on 8 and then 13 Recommendations in 2018 and 2019, respectively, illustrate this progress. Currently, Norway is compliant or largely compliant with 35 of the 40 FATF Recommendations.