Malaysia anti money laundering (AML) and counter terrorist financing (CTF) measures / Siti Nurwany Ismail

Terrorism has become one of the most important threats today, not only because of the acts themselves, but because of the complex instruments that are used in order to put these actions into practice. Among them, the financing of terrorism has developed more diversified and increasingly complex facets, with various channels that terrorists use in order to launder funds and finance these actions. In order to better combat money laundering and terrorist financing, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was created, with a set of 40+9 recommendations that states should apply in order to address this pressing and potentially dangerous issue. States are evaluated among each other, in geographic groups, with the resulting mutual evaluations serving as a basis for compliance analysis. I propose to look at how money laundering and terrorist financing activities impact the level of implementation of FATF recommendations.I began by collecting a set of data reflecting the level of mplementation of FATF recommendations to assess the effectiveness of anti money laundering and counter financing of terror efforts as determined by AML/CTF professionals to the Malaysia AML/CTF framework. The markers are Robust Regulatory Framework; AML Legislation Enforcement; AML Legislation Awareness; Private Sector Commitment and Cooperation; and Transparency. The analysis chapters attempts to measure these criteria using a variety of sources, various regulatory documents and policies enacted by Bank Negara Malaysia and other Malaysia bodies; expert opinion when available; and other materials from both official bodies and the country’s media. The findings show generally uneven progress and sometimes-inconclusive results.