What is the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)?
Last updated: 23 October 2026
What Is the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)?
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the intergovernmental body that sets global standards for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing. Established in 1989, it publishes the 40 Recommendations, which countries turn into national law, and it assesses how well each country implements them. FATF is not a regulator and cannot fine firms, but its standards shape the AML and CFT rules that banks and other regulated firms must follow.
What does FATF do?
FATF has three main functions.
- It sets the international standards, known as the FATF Recommendations.
- It runs mutual evaluations that assess each country’s legal framework and how effective its controls are in practice.
- It identifies jurisdictions with weak controls and publishes them on two public lists.
FATF has 40 members, and a global network of FATF-style regional bodies extends its reach to more than 200 jurisdictions.
What are the FATF Recommendations?
The FATF Recommendations are the global benchmark for AML and counter-terrorist financing programs. They are built around the risk-based approach, which asks firms and countries to focus effort where risk is highest. Several are central to day-to-day compliance work.
- Recommendation 1 sets out the risk-based approach.
- Recommendation 10 covers customer due diligence.
- Recommendation 12 covers politically exposed persons.
- Recommendation 16 covers wire transfer information, known as the Travel Rule.
- Recommendation 19 requires enhanced due diligence for higher-risk countries.
- Recommendation 20 covers suspicious transaction reporting, the basis of the suspicious activity report.
- Recommendations 24 and 25 cover transparency and beneficial ownership.
What are the FATF grey list and black list?
FATF publishes two public lists, which it updates after its plenary meetings held three times a year.
The current FATF lists change over time, so build them into your processes in a way that updates automatically and does not rely on a static country table.
How does FATF affect financial institutions?
FATF has no direct power over firms, but its standards reach them through national law. A country’s mutual evaluation result and its grey or black list status influence how regulators supervise, how correspondent banks assess counterparties and how firms rate customer risk. Firms should map their controls to the Recommendations and monitor list changes so exposure to a newly listed country is spotted early.
How can technology support FATF compliance?
Meeting FATF-aligned expectations means keeping country risk, customer risk and monitoring rules current. Automated KYC and CDD, transaction monitoring and sanctions screening can apply updated country risk ratings at scale, and AI helps reduce the manual work this creates. See how SymphonyAI anti-money laundering software supports it.
FAQs
Is FATF a regulator?
No. FATF sets standards and assesses countries, but it cannot fine firms. Each country enforces the standards through its own laws and regulators.
Is FATF the same as the EU’s AMLA?
No. FATF is a global standard setter. The EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) is a regulator that supervises and enforces rules within the EU.
What is the difference between AML and CFT?
AML addresses the laundering of criminal proceeds, while CFT (counter-terrorist financing) addresses funds used to support terrorism. FATF standards cover both, and they are usually written together as AML/CFT. See counter-terrorist financing.
What happens when a country is placed on the grey list?
It commits to an action plan and faces closer scrutiny, which usually means more due diligence for firms dealing with it and potentially higher costs of doing business.
For more, see anti-money laundering (AML).