History of MONEYVAL
MONEYVAL, which is known as the official name of the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures, was established in 1997. The old name of MONEYVAL was PC-R-EV, then this name changed in 2002. As of January 1, 2011, MONEYVAL, the Council of Europe's monitoring body, has become a monitoring mechanism directly linked to the Committee of Ministers. MONEYVAL's functions are regulated by the general provisions of Decision Res (2005) 47 on committees and subsidiaries. Moreover, MONEYVAL was originally an observer for the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) but later became a joint member of FATF in June 2006.
It is a body of the Council of Europe that undertakes the task of evaluating compliance with the main international standards against money laundering and financing. That's way MONEYVAL's main task is to evaluate compliance with international standards in the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism and to make recommendations to national authorities when it comes to the necessary improvements in their systems. MONEYVAL aims to make national authorities better fight AML / CTF with a dynamic mutual evaluation process, regular competitors of reports, and processes such as referee evaluation.
MONEYVAL of Objectives
The main objective of MONEYVAL is to ensure that member states have effective systems against AML / CTF and comply with relevant international standards in this regard, and they have a number of tasks to achieve these goals. These tasks are as follows;
- To raise awareness about global policies against money laundering and financing of terrorism.
- To evaluate the compliance of MONEYVAL members with the relevant international standards in sectors such as finance, law enforcement, and law.
- To research ML / TF methods and techniques' typologies and publish reports on them.
- To contribute to the global fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism by working in close cooperation with organizations such as FATF, IMF, World Bank, United Nations, and the European Union
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Researching horizontal reviews of progress made by each of the assessed States to meet international standards
MONEYVAL's Monitoring Procedure and Evaluation Reports
Consisting of 4 experts every year; Various evaluations are made by multidisciplinary teams, one legal expert, two financial experts, and finally, a law enforcement expert. MONEYVAL performs its evaluations round. The Rules of Procedure are explicitly defined for each round. These teams are gathered on the field with ministries, judiciary, tax, and law enforcement, traditions, financial intelligence practitioners to find a MONEYVAL state's approach to combating AML / CTF.
After the teams visit the relevant institutions, a detailed evaluation report is prepared with suggestions for improvement. After this report is discussed and replaced at MONEYVAL's general assembly meetings. In case of acceptance of the report, it is sent to the relevant country to check whether the changes are in compliance with the general decisions, and finally, this revised report is published later.
Countries and Jurisdictions Subject to the Evaluation of MONEYVAL
There are member states that are subject to evaluation by MONEYVAL. As we mentioned, MONEYVAL evaluates compliance with basic international standards in combating money laundering and the effectiveness of terrorism financing practices in these countries. Some of these countries are:
- Bulgaria
- Albania
- Estonia
- Croatia
- Georgia
- Israel
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Romania
- Ukraine
- Azerbaijan
- The Czech Republic
- Serbia
- Poland
- Moldova
- Cyprus
- Armenia
- Monaco
- Slovak Republic
MONEYVAL's Observers
Several bodies, countries, and organizations have been given observer status with MONEYVAL. The representatives of the observers have the right to participate in the MONEYVAL board determined after the reports prepared by the teams mentioned. Still, they do not have the right to vote on whether this report comes into force or not. Some of these observers are:
- International Monetary Fund (IMF)
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
- Secretariat of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)
- World Bank
- Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)
- United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC)
- Commonwealth Secretariat
- ICPO-Interpol
