The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) has issued a set of guidelines to describe how banks should include the management of risks related to money laundering and financing of terrorism within their overall risk management framework. 

These guidelines are consistent with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “International Standards on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism and Proliferation” (see summary below).

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global standard setter in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, has published its revised recommendations entitled “International Standards on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism & Proliferation – The FATF Recommendations”. The revised recommendations

(i) fully integrate counter-terrorist financing measures with anti-money laundering controls,
(ii) introduce new measures to counter the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
(iii) better address the laundering of proceeds of corruption and tax crimes,
(iv) strengthen the requirements for higher risk situations, and (v) enable countries to take a more focussed risk-based approach.

Some of the key changes are:

• Enhanced transparency – to make it more difficult for criminals and terrorists to conceal their identities or hide their assets behind legal persons and arrangements;
• Politically exposed persons (PEPs) – stronger requirements for dealing with PEPs;
• Wider scope of money laundering predicate offences – by the inclusion of tax crimes; and
• Improved risk-based approach – this allows countries and the private sector to apply their resources more efficiently by targeting higher risk areas.

The BCBS guidelines include cross-references to FATF standards in order to assist banks in complying with national requirements based on those standards.

Copies of the guidelines =  http://www.bis.org/publ/bcbs275.pdf

and

related press release = http://www.bis.org/press/p140115.htm