Financial Crime World

Title: Seychelles Faces Scrutiny Over Money Laundering Techniques: FATF Report Reveals Persisting Issues

Subtitle

The Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) releases a follow-up report assessing Seychelles’ progress in tackling money laundering and terrorist financing.

According to a recent report published by ESAAMLG, Seychelles has made progress in addressing the technical compliance deficiencies identified in a 2018 Mutual Evaluation. However, the country still faces challenges in fully implementing necessary measures to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendations.

Seychelles’ Improvements: Re-ratings for Recommendations

  • Recommendation 19: Seychelles received a Compliant (C) rating, up from Partially Compliant (PC), for ensuring provision for the assessment and understanding of the money laundering and terrorist financing risks in the sector.
  • Recommendations 5, 25, 28, and 34: These were upgraded from Partially Compliant (PC) to Largely Compliant (LC), and they involve various aspects of customer due diligence, risk assessment, and financial transaction reporting.

Ongoing Concerns and Enhanced Follow-up

Despite these improvements, Seychelles will remain in enhanced follow-up due to fundamental issues regarding its Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) system yet to be fully addressed. The technical compliance ratings are essential for evaluating the effectiveness of a country’s AML/CFT framework. FATF uses ratings of Compliant (C), Largely Compliant (LC), Partially Compliant (PC), and Non-Compliant (NC) to reflect the extent to which a country has implemented the requirements of the FATF Recommendations.

Previous Progress and Future Collaboration

In recent years, Seychelles has made significant progress in addressing issues raised in previous evaluations (ESAAMLG report from March 2021). This new follow-up report represents another step towards bringing Seychelles in line with international AML/CFT standards. The FATF continues to monitor Seychelles’ progress and collaborate with the country to strengthen its systems further.

Download the Report: ESAAMLG’s Follow-Up Report Seychelles - 2023

For more information, download ESAAMLG’s Follow-Up Report Seychelles - 2023 from the ‘Publications’ section of their website.