The Council of Europe, through the EU/Council of Europe Central Asia Rule of Law joint Programme and its Action on Promoting Transparency and Action against Economic Crime in Central Asia, organised training activities on Transparency of beneficial ownership of legal entities for the supervisory authorities and reporting entities of Turkmenistan. The training sessions took place in Ashgabat on 6-9 November 2023 and gathered over 50 representatives of commercial banks, non-banking financial institutions, designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFPBs) as well as supervisory authorities in Turkmenistan, including the Central Bank, the Financial Intelligence Unit under the Ministry of Finance and Economy and the Ministry of Justice. 

The training aimed at raising awareness of the Turkmen institutions on international standards and good practices in promoting the transparency of beneficial ownership and enhancing the ability of representatives to promptly identify beneficial ownership information through case studies and breakout sessions and take appropriate measures in the field of AML/CFT compliance. Participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with international standards and good practices on the requirements of customer due diligence measures and approaches in collecting information on beneficial ownership; procedures and practices for identifying beneficial ownership; the challenges in obtaining information; mechanisms of maintaining registers; the typologies of misuse of legal persons; and recent developments in other jurisdictions. The reporting entities have increased their understanding on quality requirements for suspicious transactions reporting relating to beneficial ownership. The training also contributed to strengthening the supervision skills of the national regulatory authorities by providing the good international practices in Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism supervision. 

This activity was organised by the Action on “Promoting Transparency and Action against Economic Crime” of the Central Asia Rule of Law Programme 2020-2024, a joint initiative co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.