Changeflow GovPing Financial FATF Plenary: Asset Recovery Guidance Approved

Priority review Guidance Added Final

FATF Plenary: Asset Recovery Guidance Approved

Detected March 13th, 2026

Summary

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Plenary has approved new guidance on asset recovery, aimed at depriving criminals of their illicit gains. This guidance provides updated recommendations and best practices for member countries to enhance their efforts in tracing, freezing, and confiscating criminal assets.

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What changed

The FATF has approved new guidance focused on asset recovery, a key component in combating financial crime. This guidance aims to provide member countries with updated tools and strategies to effectively deprive criminals of their illicit gains through improved tracing, freezing, and confiscation of assets. The approval signifies a commitment to strengthening international cooperation and domestic frameworks for asset recovery.

Regulated entities, particularly financial institutions and law enforcement agencies, should familiarize themselves with the new guidance. While FATF guidance is non-binding, it sets international standards and influences national legislation and regulatory practices. Compliance officers should review the guidance to ensure their internal policies and procedures align with the FATF's recommendations on asset recovery to mitigate risks associated with financial crime and support international efforts against illicit finance.

What to do next

Review FATF's new guidance on asset recovery.
Assess current internal policies and procedures for alignment with the guidance.
Implement necessary updates to enhance asset tracing, freezing, and confiscation capabilities.

Source document (simplified)

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Outcomes FATF Plenary, 22-24 October 2025

Publication details

Language

English, French

Country

France

Topic

Plenary Meeting

Paris, 24 October 2025

The fourth Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Plenary meeting under the Mexican Presidency of Elisa de Anda Madrazo concluded today, with a strong commitment to focus efforts to deprive criminals around the world of their ill-gotten gains.

Delegates from the FATF’s Global Network of more than 200 jurisdictions and observers participated in three days of discussions to address key issues in the fight against illicit finance. The FATF continues to enrich its global perspective with new jurisdictions participating under its Guest Initiative.

In a key milestone, the Plenary adopted reports of the first two FATF assessments under the new round of mutual evaluations. Belgium and Malaysia are the first FATF members to be assessed under the new, more time-bound and risk-based assessments, which place greater emphasis on countries’ results in tackling money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing.

The Plenary removed Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Nigeria, and South Africa from the list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring after completing their Action Plans.

The Plenary approved comprehensive new guidance on asset recovery, that will help countries build effective frameworks to close loopholes and recover proceeds of crime, including across borders - critical to reducing and disrupting money laundering and ultimately making crime unprofitable.

The FATF also approved a new Horizon Scan, to notify public and private sectors around the world about current and potential future illicit finance risks presented by artificial intelligence (AI) and deepfakes.

Compliance with the FATF Standards

High-risk

and other Monitored Jurisdictions

Jurisdictions under increased monitoring

These jurisdictions are actively working with the FATF and the Global Network to address the strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing. When the FATF places a jurisdiction under increased monitoring, it means the country has committed to implement an Action Plan to swiftly resolve the identified strategic deficiencies within agreed timeframes.

Jurisdictions no longer under Increased Monitoring

Following successful on-site visits, the Plenary congratulated Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Nigeria and South Africa for positive progress in addressing strategic anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism and proliferation financing (AML/CFT/CPF) deficiencies identified during their mutual evaluations. The jurisdictions have completed their Action Plans within agreed timeframes and will no longer be subject to the FATF’s increased monitoring process.

To sustain improvements in their AML/CFT/CPF systems, Burkina Faso and Nigeria will continue working with their FATF-Style Regional Body (FSRB), GIABA; Mozambique will continue working with their FSRB, ESAAMLG; and South Africa, as an FATF member, will continue working with the FATF in coordination with ESAAMLG.

Jurisdictions subject to a Call for Action

The FATF identifies countries or jurisdictions with serious strategic deficiencies to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing. These jurisdictions are subject to a call for action to protect the international financial system.

The FATF has updated its public statement on Iran.

Mutual Evaluations of Belgium and Malaysia

The Plenary discussed and adopted the mutual evaluation reports of Belgium and Malaysia, which assessed the effectiveness of the countries’ measures to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, and compliance with the FATF Recommendations.

The reports will be published in December 2025 following a global quality and consistency review. Under the new round, relevant countries will have a timebound roadmap of Key Recommended Actions to strengthen the effectiveness of their defences against illicit finance within three years.

Strengthening the Global Network

Jamaica and Nigeria participated in the Plenary and Working Group meetings for the first time, joining Kenya under the Guest Initiative, which aims to strengthen cohesion across the Global Network and broaden regional perspectives at FATF meetings.

Strategic Initiatives

Strengthening asset recovery around the world

The Plenary adopted new guidance to help countries understand and implement recently strengthened FATF Standards on asset recovery, which gave jurisdictions a more robust toolkit to target and confiscate criminal assets.

The new guidance, to be published next month, aims to address low levels of recovery of criminal assets around the world. The FATF recently held a webinar on extended confiscation which is available to view here.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deepfakes

A new ‘Horizon Scan’ agreed by the FATF this week warns of how criminals can exploit generative AI, AI agents and other new technologies to facilitate their illicit activities. For example deepfakes can be developed at scale to enable cyber fraud.

The forthcoming Horizon Scan will examine a few case studies for countries and the private sector to consider as they strengthen their safeguards and harness AI responsibly to protect against criminal activity.

Membership Issues

The FATF suspension of the membership of the Russian Federation continues to stand (see February 2024 statement).

Related materials

24 Oct 2025

High-Risk Jurisdictions subject to a Call for Action - 24 October 2025 High-risk jurisdictions have significant strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and financing of proliferation. For all countries identified as high-risk, the FATF calls on all members and urges all jurisdictions to apply enhanced due diligence, and, in the most serious cases, countries are called upon to apply countermeasures to protect the international financial system from the money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing (ML/TF/PF) risks emanating from the country.
- 24 Oct 2025

Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring - 24 October 2025 Jurisdictions under increased monitoring are actively working with the FATF to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing.
Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Nigeria and South Africa are no longer subject to increased monitoring by the FATF.
Photos of the meeting are available on FlickR.