Angola Has Addressed Only One of the Six Deficiencies Identified by FATF

The international body has removed only one requirement from its list of concerns — the need for Angola to deepen its understanding of money laundering and terrorist financing risks — while maintaining the other five. Despite this reduction, Angola remains subject to more recommendations than those imposed in June 2010, when it was first placed on the FATF grey list.

Angola has managed to fulfill only one of the six obligations imposed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in October 2024, when the organization once again placed the country on its grey list.

This month, FATF released the results of its fifth follow-up assessment since Angola’s return to the grey list. The previous four assessments — three in 2025 and one in February of this year — concluded that there had been no significant progress. FATF continues to keep Angola under enhanced monitoring but has removed from its action plan the requirement for the country to further strengthen its understanding of money laundering and terrorist financing risks.

However, the other five recommendations remain in place. Angola is still required to “improve risk-based supervision of non-bank financial institutions and DNFBPs (Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions),” as well as to “ensure that competent authorities have adequate, accurate, and timely access to beneficial ownership information and appropriately address violations of these requirements.”

The country must also “demonstrate an increase in money laundering investigations and prosecutions,” “strengthen its capacity to identify, investigate, and prosecute terrorist financing cases,” and “demonstrate effective mechanisms for the timely implementation of targeted financial sanctions.”

According to FATF’s regular monitoring schedule for jurisdictions under enhanced scrutiny, a new assessment is expected in October. In contrast, Namibia, which was added to the grey list in February 2024, was removed this month after successfully implementing all eight recommendations assigned to it.

MORE RECOMMENDATIONS THAN IN 2010

Despite the reduction in outstanding requirements from six to five, Angola remains subject to more recommendations today than it was in June 2010, when it first entered the FATF grey list after having been placed on the blacklist four months earlier.

At that time, Angola received four recommendations: “the proper criminalization of money laundering and terrorist financing,” “ensuring a fully operational and effective Financial Intelligence Unit,” “establishing and implementing an adequate legal framework for identifying, tracing, and freezing terrorist assets,” and “ratifying the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.”

After meeting those requirements, Angola was removed from the grey list in 2016 and did not return until 2024. At the time of its return, the Director-General of the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), Gilberto Capeça, stated that Angola was “not on the grey list” but rather on an “enhanced monitoring list,” adding that the government had already implemented between 50% and 60% of the 17 measures included in the action plan.