The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) notified entities under its purview to familiarize themselves with the new Financial Action Task Force (FATF) updates.

FATF Published Financial Crime Updates

In its official announcement, AUSTRAC informed reporting entities that FATF has published 2 updates related to international financial crime, such as money laundering, terrorism financing, and proliferation financing. The task force’s latest updates highlighted new information regarding jurisdiction that may pose an increased risk to international finance.

The first update was published on October 24, highlighting high-risk jurisdictions that are subject to a call for action. In its update, FATF encouraged action regarding several higher-risk jurisdictions, namely the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran and Myanmar. All of these have long been highlighted as high-risk jurisdictions with “strategic deficiencies in their AML/CTF/CPF regimes. “

In addition to that, FATF published an update regarding jurisdictions under increased monitoring. The update, which also went live on October 24, listed jurisdictions that also have “strategic deficiencies in their AML/CTF/CPF regimes,” but are actively working with the FATF to address them.

In its own release, AUSTRAC encouraged reporting entities to familiarize themselves with these important updates. The Australian body also said that companies under its purview should be familiar with the higher-risk jurisdictions and leverage this knowledge when assessing risk, enacting compliance programs and making other decisions.

AUSTRAC Detected Suspicious Payments

AUSTRAC’s announcement comes shortly after the body discovered that some of the payment providers under its jurisdiction had failed to detect suspicious payments for child sexual exploitation.

The body described these shortcomings as inexcusable and said that these high-risk transactions should have been detected immediately. Brendan Thomas, AUSTRAC’s CEO, elaborated: “Failure to effectively monitor for suspicious transactions and to submit timely reports means we miss out on critical intelligence our customs and border, and law enforcement agencies can use to catch the offenders and other criminals.”

In October, AUSTRAC penalized Cryptolink for certain AML/CTF failings.