FATF adds Bosnia and Iraq to grey list, removes Algeria and Namibia

What happened

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global standard-setter for anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT), met in plenary from 17 to 19 June 2026 in Paris. It added Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iraq to its list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring, the grey list. Both committed to action plans to address strategic deficiencies within agreed timeframes.

FATF removed Algeria and Namibia from the grey list. Both exited after on-site visits confirmed they had completed their action plans. The grey list now stands at 22 jurisdictions.

The high-risk list subject to a call for action was unchanged. It remains Iran, North Korea, and Myanmar (Burma). This was the sixth and final plenary under the Mexican presidency of Elisa de Anda Madrazo. The United Kingdom assumes the FATF presidency under Giles Thomson from 1 July 2026, and Vivek Aggarwal of India was appointed incoming Vice-President.

The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a companion notice to US financial institutions. It said institutions should consider FATF’s statements in their risk-based policies, noting that Burma remains subject to a call for action and that FATF urges enhanced due diligence (EDD) proportionate to the risks.

Why it matters

Grey-list changes are not symbolic. A listing feeds directly into the country-risk weighting that drives screening thresholds, correspondent-banking decisions, and onboarding friction for two new jurisdictions. The reverse is also true: a removal that no one actions inside the institution leaves customers carrying risk weightings the standard-setter has now retired.

The proliferation-financing dimension is the part teams tend to underweight. Iraq sits in a region where sanctions evasion and proliferation-financing (PF) typologies are live concerns, so the addition is a prompt to look past pure AML controls. The unchanged call-for-action list keeps Iran and North Korea where they were, which means the practical analytical shift this quarter is the grey-list movement, not the black list.

The leadership handover matters for what comes next. A UK presidency from July suggests likely continuity on asset recovery and beneficial-ownership priorities, areas the reader should expect to feature in the next assessment cycle.

Practitioner angle

• Update country-risk matrices and screening rules to add Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iraq as increased-monitoring jurisdictions, and brief correspondent-banking and onboarding teams on the change.
• Reassess any accounts placed under EDD solely on the Algeria or Namibia listing. Both are now off the list, so confirm whether the heightened treatment still has an independent basis before you keep applying it or stand it down.
• Read the FinCEN notice alongside the FATF outcomes if you have US touchpoints, and keep Burma flagged as a call-for-action jurisdiction with EDD proportionate to risk.
• Pre-stage the country-risk update process so the matrix change, the screening-rule change, and the team briefing move together rather than in separate slow cycles.

The single most important action: push the two additions and two removals into your country-risk matrix and screening rules this quarter, and re-examine every account that was under EDD only because of the Algeria or Namibia listing.