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FATF removes Bulgaria, DRC, Ivory Coast and Monaco from ‘grey list’

Monday, November 02, 2026 — 17:27:43 (UTC)

FATF removes Bulgaria, DRC, Ivory Coast and Monaco from ‘grey list’

Paris, November 2nd – The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has removed Bulgaria, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo and Monaco from its ‘grey list’ of jurisdictions under increased monitoring, following plenary meetings.

The watchdog said all four countries had made “positive progress in addressing strategic anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism and proliferation financing deficiencies identified during their mutual evaluations.”

Whereas Vietnam were kept on the grey list for slow reforms, with the FATF saying it “will consider next steps if Vietnam does not make tangible improvements to rectify its strategy deficiencies by the next Plenary meeting.” That next meeting is planned for February 22nd to 26th.

While being on the grey list doesn’t bring sanctions, banks and financial institutions typically scrutinise transactions more closely, which can limit investment and capital flows.

Dr Janet Bastiman, Chief Data Scientist at Napier AI, commented: “The FATF’s removal of Monaco, Bulgaria, Ivory Coast and the DRC will result in banks reopening relationships they cut when those countries were listed, bringing more cross-border traffic to monitor, with much of it from jurisdictions with a limited record of effective AML controls.”

“Criminal money typically flows through weak points, and as one route is closed, it moves on to the next, whether that is a country still on the grey list like Vietnam or the scam networks operating out of Myanmar. The Napier AI / AML Index shows that $5.09 trillion is laundered globally each year and very little of it stays on one route for long. Money laundering trends appear in suspicious transaction data before a country’s rating changes, so banks relying on a country-risk rating alone will be exposed.”

In contrast, Iran, Myanmar and North Korea remained on the black list for serious strategic deficiencies to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and financing of proliferation.

Blacklisting is the FATF’s harshest label and can result in frozen investments, soaring compliance costs, and banks effectively being cut off from the global financial system.

In the case of North Korea, hackers from the country have been blamed for the $6.3 billion heist on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which could be the biggest in history.

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Source: Company press release.

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