FATF gives green light for Bulgaria to leave the "grey list for money laundering

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has given the green light for Bulgaria to leave the “grey list”, the Ministry of Justice announced on its Facebook page.

A decision of the Group, officially announced today, states that Bulgaria has largely implemented its Action Plan for removal from the list, which seriously hinders foreign investment in our country. One last on-site inspection remains to confirm that the reforms carried out are irreversible, the post on the social network says.

At the meeting in Paris, Bulgaria was represented by the Minister of Justice Nikolay Naydenov. He assured that our country has implemented all the measures from the Action Plan and is ready to demonstrate the effectiveness of the reforms carried out, as well as that we will continue in the future at all levels efforts to strengthen the system for combating money laundering and terrorist financing.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) statement recalls that in October 2023, Bulgaria made a high-level political commitment to work with FATF and MONEYVAL to strengthen the effectiveness of the AML/CFT regime. At its plenary meeting in June this year, the Task Force took an initial decision that Bulgaria had substantially implemented its Action Plan and scheduled an on-site assessment to confirm that the implementation of the AML/CFT reforms had started and was working effectively, and that the necessary political commitment remained in place to continue implementing the reforms.

Bulgaria has undertaken a total of ten reforms, including implementing its national AML/CFT strategy through the adoption of a comprehensive action plan; addressing the remaining technical compliance deficiencies; demonstrating initial implementation of risk-based supervision for postal money service operators, currency exchange service providers and real estate agents, and establishing controls on the entry of virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and postal money service operators; ensuring that beneficial ownership information held in the Commercial Register is accurate and up-to-date.

On Wednesday, it was announced that the Council of Europe's Committee of Experts on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism - MONEYVAL - has completed its Fifth Evaluation Round for Bulgaria, and that our country has implemented all 40 recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) at the level of “full compliance“ or “largely compliant“. Bulgaria has strengthened its legal framework for preventing and combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism, the conclusion of the MONEYVAL