Finland further tunes technical compliance but professions exposed to criminals, FATF finds

In a fourth follow-up to 2019's mutual evaluation report on Finland, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) records a partially to largely compliant re-rating for four of its Recommendations. The Scandinavian country puts requirements on correspondent banking and payable through accounts that the global AML standard-setter says accord with Recommendation 13; although they only apply to EEA country relationships when these are identified as higher risk, a mandatory requirement to use a risk-based approach that provides for enhanced due diligence, and to treat EU countries found by FATF to have strategic deficiencies as high risk, effectively nullifies any apparent exemption.

In a fourth follow-up to 2019's mutual evaluation report on Finland [1], the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) records a partially to largely compliant re-rating for four of its Recommendations. The Scandinavian country puts requirements on correspondent banking and payable through accounts that the global AML standard-setter says accord with Recommendation 13; although they only apply to EEA country relationships when these are identified as higher risk, a mandatory requirement to use a risk-based approach that provides for enhanced due diligence, and to treat EU countries found by FATF to have strategic deficiencies as high risk, effectively nullifies any apparent exemption.