Danish sector told to consult FATF for improved player safety

Denmark’s gambling authority, Spillemyndigheden, has urged operators to take notice of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) updated monitoring list.

The FATF is an international AML and CTF monitoring body that advises jurisdictions on action plans to combat criminal activity, and scrutinises those who fall behind. It was set up by the G7 group of countries, but its influence is felt globally.

Meanwhile, under Danish and EU gaming laws, licensees are required to perform enhanced customer due diligence (EDD) checks when there is cause for concern that a player has put an operator at risk of being misused for money laundering or terrorist financing. 

One of these risk precursors is when a player is linked to a high-risk jurisdiction – such as one on the FATF’s ‘grey list’ or ‘black list’ of countries.

While the presence of a jurisdiction on the FATF’s monitoring list does not require an EDD check in and of itself, increased due diligence is mandatory when a country appears on the EU Relegation of High Risk Third Countries list – with both registries often overlapping. 

FATF Grey List Update

The last FATF Annual Report (2023-2024) under the presidency of T. Raja Kumar saw a number of countries taken off, or added to, the list of jurisdictions that require increased monitoring and financial scrutiny from the international watchdog. This is what is commonly referred to as the ‘grey list’.

Kumar’s final term as the head of FATF resulted in five countries being added to the organisation’s grey list. To get off the list, governments need to create an action plan with the FATF which strengthens their AML procedures.

The newly-added countries were Bulgaria, Kenya, Monaco, Namibia and Venezuela. These are in addition to Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Croatia, DR Congo, Haiti, Laos, Lebanon, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, South Africa, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Vietnam and Yemen.

“A country is not added to the FATF’s grey list only because of one or two deficiencies, but because it does not have the fundamental strategic measures in place to crack down on money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, which poses a risk to the entire global financial system,” the report read. 

Three other countries – North Korea, Iran and Myanmar – are on the FATF’s blacklist. This calls on all of the organisation’s members to practice heightened due diligence when dealing with these nations.

A further set of eight countries were removed from FATF’s increased monitoring listing due to significant AML/CTF reforms and a high-level of political commitment to adopt them. 

These include Albania, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Jordan, Panama, Uganda and the United Arab Emirates.

Major gambling jurisdictions have good reason to pay close attention to the FATF grey list and the organisation’s AML/CTF requirements. Malta and Gibraltar, two major licensing and registration hubs in European gaming, have found themselves on the grey list in recent years, though both were able to secure removal.