Further progress in tackling money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism from Cyprus has been noted by the Moneyval, the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism, in a new assessment report published today.
Specifically, the committee finds that Cyprus has improved its level of compliance with Recommendation 15 of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) concerning new technologies, as well as progress towards enhancing compliance with Recommendation 8 regarding non-profit organizations.
As stated in a press release, since November 2022, Cyprus has enhanced the regime for virtual asset service providers with only a few deficiencies remaining. Additionally, several steps have been taken to assess the report on the non-profit sector’s exposure to terrorist financing and to strengthen supervisory activities, although these have not been fully implemented.
According to the announcement, while the assessment of Recommendation 8 remains partially compliant, Cyprus has been upgraded to “largely compliant” from “partially compliant” regarding Recommendation 15.
“Overall, Cyprus has made progress in addressing most of the technical compliance deficiencies identified in the mutual evaluation report of 2019,” it is stated.
Thus, out of the total 40 recommendations, Cyprus scores compliant on 16, largely compliant on 21, and partially compliant on 3.
Cyprus, Moneyval reports, has met the broader expectation of correcting most of the technical compliance deficiencies by the end of the third year of its evaluation.
Finally, it is noted that Cyprus will update the Committee in May 2025 regarding the progress made towards strengthening the framework against money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism.
