Politics and Society | Iceland Monitor | Fri 18 Oct 2019 | 11.50 GMT | Modified at 12.37

Iceland on FATF’s Gray List

mbl.is/Golli

Vala Hafstað
vala@mbl.is

Iceland has just been added on the gray list of the Financial Action Task Force, FATF – a list of countries which have failed to take sufficient measures to combat money laundering and the financing of acts of terrorism, mbl.is reports , quoting the Twitter account of journalist Koos Couvée.

Breaking: The Financial Action Task Force @FATFNews has added Iceland, Mongolia and Zimbabwe to its greylist of monitored (higher-risk) jurisdictions. Ethiopa, Sri Lanka and Tunisia have been removed after improving their anti-money laundering regimes.
— Koos Couvée (@KoosCouvee) October 18, 2019

FATF is an intergovernmental organization, founded in 1989 to develop policies to combat money laundering. In 2001 its mandate expanded to include terrorism financing.

According to Couvée, Iceland, Mongolia and Zimbabwe were added to the list this morning. At the same time, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Tunisia were removed from the list, after having improved their anti-money laundering policies.

Mbl.is has contacted Icelandic government representatives on this matter, but has so far not been able to obtain confirmation from them that Iceland has been put on the list.

UPDATE:

Bloomberg.com reports on the decision this morning and refers to a FATF statement:

“Joining Mongolia as additions on the Financial Action Task Force’s watch list were Iceland and Zimbabwe, according to a FATF statement released by email Friday from Paris.

‘Each jurisdiction has developed an action plan with the FATF to address the most serious deficiencies,’ according to the statement. ‘The FATF welcome their high-level political commitment to this action plan.’”