The Financial Action Task Force has been issuing mutual evaluation reports on its members' (and aspirant members') anti-money laundering capabilities since the organisation's foundation in 1989. Its third mutual evaluation of Hong Kong was issued in July 2008. Although the report was generally favourable to Hong Kong's AML regulatory regime, it noted that the regulatory framework relied primarily on principles and guidelines, rather than a prescriptive, statute-based framework, with civil and criminal sanctions, and a full range of supervisory and enforcement powers. In addition, the report noted that there were categories of financial institutions which were largely outside an AML regulatory structure, namely remittance agents and money changers.
FATF's influence on the evolution and strengthening of worldwide efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist financing is based upon censorious rather than coercive powers. Members and observers, whose AML regimes are found not to conform
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