The Council of Europe has said that Serbia has made progress in meeting its recommendations set out by the Council for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL), but that it will remain in the enhanced surveillance regime and should submit a new progress report in December 2019.
Serbia was placed under the regime of enhanced supervision by MONEYVAL on the basis of an April 2016 report by the Council of Europe (COE) which assessed the effectiveness of its anti-money laundering and terrorist financing measures.
MONEYVAL said that based on an assessment of Serbia’s compliance with 40 recommendations made by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Council has found that Serbia is now ‘largely compliant’ with ten requirements, for which Belgrade had previously been assessed as “partially fulfilling” or “not fulfilling”.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an intergovernmental body established in 1989 with the aim of setting standards and promoting the effective application of legal, regulatory and operational measures to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other threats to the integrity of the international financial system.
Serbia is a member of the FATF through the MONEYVAL Mechanism, a Council of Europe Expert Committee that assesses the compliance of Member States with international standards for combating money laundering and terrorist financing in the areas of legal practice, financial systems and internal affairs.
In October last year, FATF announced that Serbia remains on a black list of countries with “strategic shortcomings in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing”.
In 2012 FATF adopted the International Standards against Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism and the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Based on these standards, MONEYVAL assesses the compliance of anti-money laundering and terrorist financing systems in member states of the Council of Europe with international standards.
