About UFA

The UFA held its 18th Annual Meeting in Auckland, New Zealand from 13 to 17 July 2015. The meeting was co-chaired by Mr Rajesh Chhana, Deputy Secretary, Policy, of the New Zealand Ministry of Justice in Wellington and Mr Andrew Colvin, Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police in Canberra.

The principal outcomes of this year’s annual meeting were as follows:

• Important governance and membership-related decisions were made, including adoption of a new reporting template for strategic plans and a project time-line for completion of a new four year strategic plan next year for the period 2016-2020;
• Five mutual evaluation reports were adopted by the membership: Australia, Malaysia, Samoa, Sri Lanka and Vanuatu. These are the first UFA reports under the new assessment methodology of 2013 which focuses on effective implementation of AML/CFT measures;
• Five second round (and final) follow-up reports were adopted from the last round of evaluations in relation to Afghanistan, Lao PDR, Maldives, Myanmar and Papua New Guinea;
• Adoption of transitional follow-up rules applicable to UFA members who completed a second round mutual evaluation but have not yet been evaluated in the UFA’s third round of evaluations;
• Adoption of the joint FATF-UFA report Money Laundering/Terrorist Financing Vulnerabilities Associated with Gold. The report, co-led by Australia and India, includes a series of case studies and red flag indicators, and identifies the many features of gold that make it attractive to criminals to use as a vehicle for money laundering;
• Adoption of the 2015 Yearly Typologies Report and agreement to review the UFA typologies framework (2009) to ensure the UFA’s typologies work remains relevant to the needs of UFA members and associated stakeholders;
• The 2015 UFA Typologies Workshop to be held 16-20 November 2015, in Kathmandu, Nepal was confirmed;
• The Annual Forum on Technical Assistance and Training was held concurrently with the annual meeting. The forum included 25 individual sessions between members and donors of AML/CFT technical assistance and led to important information sharing and coordination among the UFA’s members, observers, donors and providers;
• The UFA/ASEAN South East Asia and the UFA/PIFS Pacific COAMLI coordination meetings were held;
• Plenary seminars were conducted on assessing money laundering and terrorist financing risk, and lessons learned from UFA members already evaluated under the new assessment methodology;
• Members agreed to share details of their progress with implementation of measures to combat proliferation financing in order to identify models of good practice;
• Networks for improved international cooperation on operational aspects of AML/CFT, including through ARIN-AP and further engagement between FIUs through regional structures of the Egmont Group were agreed.

Photo: Over 380 delegates from UFA members, observers and observer organisations, including the Financial Action Task Force and Eurasian Group, attended the UFA’s 18th annual meeting.