After the recent leak of several suspicious activity reports (SARs) documents that financial institutions had filed with the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has issued a statement.
The FATF refrained from discussing the information contained in the leaked documents since agency standards require such data to be kept confidential. However, the authority reiterated how crucial it is for all jurisdictions to adequately implement the FATF standards.
FATF’s statement also reinforced the important role it plays in the prevention of ML/TF. As part of its AML/CFT steps, the FATF constantly promotes a collaborative effort between the private and the public sectors. Particularly, the FATF emphasizes that the private sector must help in the identification of ML/TF activities. This requires that organizations file suspicious transactions reports with the regulatory authorities.
