The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the intergovernmental watchdog that sets global standards against money laundering and terrorist financing, has launched a targeted review of jurisdictions with heavy cryptocurrency activity, focusing on countries that maintain anti-money-laundering rules on the books but enforce them at low rates. The review's first results will be released by June 2027, with a further batch to follow in October.

What the FATF agreed in Paris

The decision was reached at the FATF's October plenary in Paris, held from October 28 to 30. Plenary meetings, convened three times a year, are the FATF's top decision-making forum, where delegations sign off on its reviews, country assessments and guidance. It was the first plenary under the tenure of President Giles Thomson of the United Kingdom and drew delegates from more than 200 jurisdictions. Barbados, Namibia and Thailand took part for the first time, through the FATF Guest Initiative.

Under the agreement, scrutiny will focus on jurisdictions that have significant virtual asset sectors relative to their current assessment status. The FATF will apply objective criteria, backed by close monitoring, immediate reporting and rapid follow-up, in a bid to plug the gaps as quickly as possible.

Which countries will fall under the review — and how many — is not yet known. The FATF has not responded to a request for a list of the jurisdictions in view.

Laws on the books, little enforcement

The agreement responds to a perceived lack of enforcement of crypto regulation. The FATF first extended its standards to virtual asset service providers in June 2019, obliging countries to license or register such firms and to enforce the Travel Rule among them. In a report published on July 16, 2026 — its seventh targeted update on the application of crypto standards — the FATF found that 83% of surveyed jurisdictions had adopted Travel Rule legislation, up 10 percentage points from the year before.

The Travel Rule requires crypto firms to transmit the details of a transaction, including sender and recipient information, much as banks do with wire transfers. Yet according to the same report, 55 of the 91 jurisdictions that have adopted the legislation have taken no enforcement action. Governments also reported difficulty identifying unlicensed operators and policing offshore platforms that serve local users from abroad.

Why crypto hubs are in the crosshairs

The logic behind targeting crypto hubs is concentration. Nations with dense crypto activity — or what the FATF terms “materially important VASPs” (virtual asset service providers) — together account for roughly 97% of the global virtual asset market. Weak enforcement in even a handful of these jurisdictions can therefore put the rest of the market at risk. Criminal networks that take advantage of uneven rules to commit fraud, evade sanctions and launder money are another major reason for the focus.

“Effective implementation of the FATF Standards can no longer be delayed,” President Thomson said. The body pointed to incidents in Cambodia, Spain and North Korea as clear examples of the damage caused by weak enforcement. Delegates at the same plenary also approved a separate report on the money flowing through scam compounds.

Countries already bracing for scrutiny

Some governments are already acting. Spain has ended anonymous use of crypto ATMs and now requires identity checks on every transaction. Türkiye passed its fifth-round mutual evaluation in September but was placed under enhanced follow-up, owing to a backlog of more than 7,000 unprosecuted financial-crime cases. Mutual evaluations are peer reviews in which assessors drawn from other member countries examine a jurisdiction's anti-money-laundering framework and its effectiveness, and enhanced follow-up places a country on a schedule of more frequent progress reporting.

The sector's next major date is June 2027, when the first review results are due to be published, with a second batch of findings to follow in October.