UAE Affirms Commitment to Strengthening AML/CFT Efforts

With the aim of ensuring the success and sustainability of the UAE’s efforts to strengthen its anti-financial crime framework, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has announced that it has placed the UAE under increased monitoring.

The UAE, however, made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT efforts and address any related technical deficiencies. 

Sustainable progress has been made across the full range of its action plan. Concrete steps have been taken in all areas of anti-money laundering (AML), countering the financing of terrorism (CFT), and counter proliferation financing (CPF).

These steps include instituting a protocol and case management system to further enhance international cooperation, initiating risk-based supervision of non-bank financial institutions; and further implementing the recently developed database to ensure the timely access to adequate, accurate, and current basic and beneficial ownership information.

The UAE has substantially addressed its action plan at a technical level, including by: adequately criminalizing money laundering, establishing procedures to identify and freeze suspicious assets, improving its suspicious transaction reporting requirements, developing the monitoring and supervisory capacity of the financial sector supervisory authorities and the financial intelligence unit and establishing a fully operational and effectively functioning financial intelligence unit.

The UAE has also indicated its strong commitment to working closely with FATF to address remaining areas of improvement. Robust actions and ongoing measures taken by the UAE Government and private sector are in place to secure the stability and integrity of the country’s financial system.

The UAE’s commitment to advancing efforts to combat money laundering and counter terrorist financing remains a key pillar underpinning the country’s status as an attractive global business hub that operates in line with international standards.