Key points:
- The Financial Action Task Force has added Lebanon to its greylist
- Gambling operators need to be aware of the updated lists for AML/CFT checks
- The FATF has over 40 countries and jurisdictions supporting its AML/CFT initiatives
The Spillemyndigheden, the Danish Gambling Authority, has called attention to the updated list of high-risk jurisdictions as chosen by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The FATF, also known as the Groupe d'action financière (GAFI), was founded in 1989 as an intergovernmental taskforce to combat money laundering. This was expanded to include terrorism financing in 2001.
As such, the FATF maintains regularly updated lists of countries that gambling operators must be aware of when conducting enhanced customer due diligence (EDD) checks on customers.
The most recent addition saw Lebanon added to the FATF greylist.
The updated list contains the following:
Jurisdictions listed on the greylist:
Algeria, Angola, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Croatia, DR Congo, Haiti, Kenya, Lebanon, Mali, Monaco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Venezuela, Vietnam and Yemen.
Jurisdictions listed on the blacklist:
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran and Myanmar
Good to know: A country will be placed on the above lists if they are unwilling or unable to provide foreign law officials with information on bank accounts, brokerage records, customer identification or beneficial owner information when investigating money laundering.
The blacklists will contain countries which are outright unwilling to participate in international AML/CFT efforts, which greylist countries are still unwilling and under increased monitoring while they make improvements.
In its latest reports, Spillemyndigheden revealed that the average Danish gambling spend dropped by almost 3%.
