The Czech Republic has taken some steps to enhance its level of compliance with the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) standards to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, in particular concerning the physical cross-border transportation of currency and bearer negotiable instruments, according to a follow-up report published today by the Council of Europe´s body MONEYVAL.

As a result of its evaluation of the Czech Republic´s level of compliance of the FATF standards in 2018, MONEYVAL requested the Czech authorities to report back on progress to address a number of shortcomings under its enhanced follow-up procedure.

The new review looks into the Czech Republic’s measures to detect the physical cross-border transportation of currency and bearer negotiable instruments (BNIs). MONEYVAL has examined a range of legislative, regulatory, and institutional measures implemented by the Czech Republic in this area.

MONEYVAL concludes that the authorities have taken some positive steps to empower the customs to temporarily detain currency and bearer negotiable instruments, though this established legal framework only applies to currency and BNIs entering or leaving the EU.

It also finds that the Czech Republic is making progress to address most of the technical compliance deficiencies identified by MONEYVAL´s mutual evaluation report (MER) adopted in 2018 within three years, although more efforts remain necessary for the country to meet this general expectation.

Due to MONEYVAL´s procedural limitations, the follow-up report studies the formal changes in the legislative, regulatory and institutional framework, but does not assess the degree to which these reforms have been effectively implemented in practice.

The Czech Republic is expected to report back to MONEYVAL on further progress to strengthen its implementation of AML/CFT measures in one year.

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