Armenia has made good progress in strengthening its framework to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing since December 2015 and implementing a number of recommendations considered outstanding, especially in the area of risk assessment, targeted financial sanctions related to proliferation and preventing terrorism financing abuse of non-profit organisations.

The report of the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering agency, MONEYVAL, said this.

The new report says that after Armenia has brought the assessment of its money-laundering risks to an adequate level, MONEYVAL has raised its rating on this recommendation from “partially compliant” to “largely compliant”, the press service of the Council of Europe informs.
 
Progress has also been made on identifying which NGOs are particularly at risk of being misused for terrorist financing. Armenia has identified those organisations and has concluded that they entail in general a low risk of being abused for terrorist financing. Therefore, the rating of compliance with this recommendation has been changed from “largely compliant” to “compliant”.

MONEYVAL welcomed progress made on other recommendations, such as the ones relating to politically exposed persons and their family members; to regulation and supervision of designated non-financial businesses and professions (such as lawyers, real estate agents and dealers in precious metals and stones), as well as to the powers of law enforcement and investigative authorities to obtain access to all necessary documents for use in investigations. However, it considered that more than just minor shortcomings remain and kept their rating at a level of “partially compliant”.