The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) plenary meeting, which was concluded on Friday, 21 June 2019, in Orlando, USA, granted the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia full membership of the group. The Kingdom is the first Arab country to obtain membership in FATF. Its accession will be taking place at the next FATF plenary meeting in October 2019.
This membership serves as evidence of the Kingdom's commitment to fighting money laundering and terrorism financing through developing and enhancing its regulatory framework. It comes as a result of the Kingdom’s continuous efforts and initiatives at the local, regional, and international levels in the fight against terrorism-financing, and money laundering.
The FATF agreed to grant the Kingdom observer status in the Group in June 2015, in recognition of the significant role played by the Kingdom in the region in the field of anti-money laundering, and combating financing of terrorism and proliferation.
The Kingdom's accession to the FATF comes following the conclusion of the mutual evaluation process, one of the main requirements for obtaining full membership, which was conducted by the FATF during 2017-2018, in coordination with the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENAFAT). The findings of the assessment process have revealed the high level of compliance and effectiveness of the Kingdom’s control measures in the areas of AML/CFT.