Lithuania has improved measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, demonstrating significant progress in the level of compliance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards, according to a new follow-up report published today by MONEYVAL.
As a result of an assessment in 2018, Lithuania was requested to report to MONEYVAL under the enhanced follow-up procedure. The review looked into Lithuania’s implementation of targeted financial sanctions related to terrorism and terrorism financing, application of risk-based approach towards supervision of financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses and professions, and legislation on cross-border transportation of cash and bearer of negotiable instruments. MONEYVAL has examined a range of legislative, regulatory, and institutional measures implemented by Lithuania in these areas.
MONEYVAL has decided to re-rate from “partially compliant” to “largely compliant Lithuania´s level of compliance with the FATF recommendation on regulation and supervision of financial institutions considering the country´s progress, namely the adoption of a new anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing supervision policy for financial institutions and related risk assessment methodology.
Although Lithuania is making commendable progress to address most of the technical compliance deficiencies after the adoption of the mutual evaluation report within two years, more efforts remain necessary for the country to meet this general expectation.
Lithuania has achieved full compliance with eight of the forty FATF Recommendations constituting the international AML/CFT (Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism) standards. The jurisdiction retains minor deficiencies in the implementation of twenty-five recommendations where it has been found “largely compliant”. More significant deficiencies remain in seven recommendations, which are still rated as “partially complaint”. Lithuania has no “non-compliant” ratings.
Due to MONEYVAL procedural limitations, the follow-up report studies the formal changes in the legislative, regulatory and institutional framework but does not assess the degree to which these reforms have been effectively implemented in practice.
Lithuania is expected to report back to MONEYVAL on further progress to strengthen its implementation of AML/CFT measures in two years.
