Financial Action Taskforce

The FATF is a sub-division of the OECD whose primary concern is the eradication of money laundering. The effect of this is higher standards of due diligence and ‘know your customer principles’. Compliance with these standards may bring additional costs and inconvenience but is an absolute requirement imposed by local and international law.

Periodically the FATF publishes a list of countries or territories which are non-compliant and labels them Non Co-operative countries or Territories (NCCTs). It asks banks and financial institutions to exercise additional caution when dealing with residents from these NCCTs. In practice this means that it is very difficult to get reputable banks to open accounts for anyone resident in an NCCT or for any entity beneficially owned by such a resident.