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Reform Support
Fraud Prevention NGO Cyprus 20CY10 banner

Supporting reforms to develop well-regulated, stable and competitive financial markets

Funding Programme
Structural Reform Support Programme (SRSP)
Year
2020

Addressing money laundering and terrorism financing risks from NGO’s in Cyprus

The Commission supported the project aimed at reducing money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) risks from the NGO sector in Cyprus by delivering a risk assessment methodology, conducting the risk assessment and reviewing the adequacy of measures available to the Interior Ministry for addressing these risks. This resulted in a risk-based approach for monitoring ML/TF risks, functional requirements for monitoring software and an awareness raising campaign.

Context

MONEYVAL is a permanent monitoring body of the Council of Europe entrusted with the task of assessing compliance with the principal international AML/CFT standards and the effectiveness of their implementation. It concluded that Cyprus was lacking the ability to conduct a risk assessment that would enable its Interior Ministry to put a risk-based supervision approach in place to identify and mitigate the ML/TF threats from societies and institutions, which is an obligation under the EU’s Anti-money Laundering Directive [1].

Support delivered

Over the course of 16 months, the Committee was provided with a risk assessment methodology, a risk assessment, a review of the adequacy of measures available to the District Registrars in order to recognise potential ML/TF risks, a risk-based monitoring approach, functional requirements for software needed to support the ongoing evaluation of risks and a report on how to best deliver an awareness raising campaign for NGO’s. 

Results achieved

As a result of the project, the Cypriot AML/CFT supervisor over the NGO sector, the Interior Ministry, has a better understanding of the risks associated with societies and institutions and is better able to monitor these risks and mitigate them where needed.

 

[1]  Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing