The Financial Action Task Force published its Follow-up Report & Technical Compliance Re-Rating of Japan’s AML and CTF controls, highlighting the country’s progress in addressing technical compliance shortcomings addressed in the June 2021 Mutual Evaluation Report (MER).

As a result of this progress, Japan is now rated as compliant in 4 Recommendations, largely compliant in 29 Recommendations, and partially compliant in 6 Recommendations.

Highlights of this progress include:

• Japan revised its Terrorist Financing (TF) Act in November 2022, in accordance with the UN TF Convention, identifying an offence as a terrorist financing threat even without intent, and introducing more severe criminal sanctions.
• Japan has updated its National Risk Assessment (2022) to include NPOs, and has reached out to the NPO sector to identify potential channels for TF and other abuses.

Relevant firms can view the publications and take appropriate actions to comply with their regulatory obligations.

https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/fatf-gafi/en/publications/Mutualevaluations/Japan-FUR-2023.html