February 2025 FATF Grey List Update: Solving the Equation of Addition and Deletion of Countries

The FATF’s latest Grey List update was published on 21^st February 2025 through its February 2025 Plenary meeting. This infographic by RapidAML charts the list of countries in the Grey List as a result of the February 2025 Grey List update and gives a visual representation of the impact of the addition and deletion of countries into the Grey List, followed by the reason and process backing the FATF Grey List update.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an international body responsible for setting out Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Counter Financing of Terrorism (CFT), and Counter-Proliferation (CPF) benchmarks, which are globally accepted and implemented through its 40 Recommendations.

FATF Grey List as of 21^st February 2025

Recently, on 21^st February 2025, the FATF’s decision-making body, known as the FATF Plenary, announced the latest Grey List. This latest FATF Grey List as of 21^st February 2025 contains countries such as:

On 21^st February 2025, the Philippines was removed from the FATF Grey List.

Causes & Process Backing Grey List Updates

Despite best efforts by countries and their law enforcement agencies, criminals tend to successfully manage to carry out their illicit motives of Money Laundering (ML), Financing of Terrorism (FT), and Proliferation Financing (PF) by routing their illicit funds and activities through countries or jurisdictions that either have weak ML, FT, & PF identification, reporting, and enforcement framework or such countries which openly promote or encourage such illegal criminal activities due to its weakened governance structure.

To identify such countries which are plagued with weak legal and enforcement frameworks that pave the way for criminals to conduct ML, FT, & PF and countries that openly support the collection, distribution, and manufacture of PF weapons and bring it to public knowledge on a global level, the FATF publishes two lists periodically known as the FATF Grey List (Jurisdiction under Increased Monitoring) and Blacklist (High-Risk Jurisdiction). The FATF Grey List comprises names of countries that contain certain strategic deficiencies in their AML, CFT, & CPF regulatory framework. This process of identifying, assessing, evaluating, rating, and classifying countries into blacklist and Grey List is carried out by FATF’s International Co-operation Review Group (ICRG).

To know more about why countries are added to the FATF Grey List and its consequences on DNFBPs and VASPs, refer to our blog FATF Grey List and its Implications on DNFBPs and VASPs.

Latest FATF Grey List Updates: Concluding Remarks

DNFBPs, VASPs, and Financial Institutions subject to AML, CFT, and CPF compliance must strive to stay updated with the latest changes in the FATF Grey List and calibrate their AML, CFT, and CPF compliance solutions such as name screening, customer due diligence, customer risk assessment, enterprise-wide risk assessment software solutions to ensure synchronisation with latest FATF Grey List updates which help in ensuring watertight AML compliance.