Understanding FATF Guidelines and Global AML Standards

A concept course for compliance officers at banks and NBFCs, aspiring forensic auditors and risk professionals who know the basics of KYC and suspicious transaction reporting and now need to understand the global system those rules come from. It explains what the Financial Action Task Force is and how a body with no treaty and no fines gets every country to comply, then decodes the 40 Recommendations group by group: the risk-based approach, preventive measures for financial institutions, beneficial ownership transparency, the powers of FIUs and law enforcement, and the special regime for terrorist and proliferation financing. You learn how mutual evaluations grade countries on technical compliance and the 11 Immediate Outcomes, how the grey and black lists work and what grey listing has cost countries like Pakistan and the UAE. The course then turns to India: what the 2024 mutual evaluation found, how FATF standards shaped the PMLA amendments and RBI, SEBI and IRDAI rules, and what all this means for Indian investors and cross-border money. It closes with virtual assets and the travel rule, the wider ecosystem of EU, US, Wolfsberg, Basel and Egmont standards, and where global AML rules are heading.