Financial Action Task Force

The FATF is an intergovernmental association of states and international standard setter in the area of combating money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing.

Background

The Financial Action Task Force was founded in 1989 at the G7 summit in Paris as an independent organization to combat money laundering. Today it has 40 members, including the most important financial centers in Europe, North and South America and Asia.

The aim of the FATF is to establish uniform global standards in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. Non-member states are involved in the work of the FATF through regional groups and political pressure is exerted on countries with inadequate regulations.

Austria has been a member of the FATF since 1990. An overview with detailed information can be found on the FATF's country-specific website.

The FATF first published 40 recommendations on combating money laundering in 1990. These have been continuously updated and have become a recognized international standard. A few weeks after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the FATF's mandate was extended to include combating the financing of terrorism. Nine special recommendations were adopted for this purpose.

In 2012, the recommendations were updated again, taking into account the expansion of the mandate to include the prevention of proliferation financing, merging the special recommendations with the 40 recommendations and incorporating important findings from the previous rounds of country reviews.

Mutual Evaluations

In the course of country audits, the FATF - with the support of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund - evaluates and assesses compliance with the standards. The FATF also audits non-member states, as inadequate systems to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing can have an independent impact on the global market.

Austria was last audited by the FATF in 2015/2016. The audit report was published in September 2016 and is available on the FATF website.

The last report on the subsequent Enhanced Follow-up Process was published in November 2018 and is available on the FATF website. Austria was able to leave this process in October 2019.