The Council of Europe Economic Crime and Cooperation Division (ECCD) is supporting the Financial Monitoring Centre (FMC) of Armenia with enhancing the Methodology for conducting the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (ML/TF) National Risk Assessment (NRA) of Armenia. The support aims at enabling the state authorities to allocate resources more appropriately and focus on areas with higher vulnerabilities and threats.

As part of these efforts, a workshop on “Conducting ML/TF National Risk Assessment” was held in Yerevan during 20-21 April 2023 to familiarize the representatives of the National Bank and FMC of Armenia with the Council of Europe’s Methodology for ML/TF NRA, discuss the review of the Armenia NRA Methodology and assessment Reports produced by the FMC and provide recommendations to improve their content with a focus on data collection tools, risk identification, data analysis and mapping process. Feedback and further questions were provided by the participants concerning the methodology and the approach to be taken in conducting the national risk assessment. 

To further sustain these efforts, the ECCD has also undertaken an expert review of the ML/TF NRA Methodology of Armenia that was used for the preparation of the 2020 ML/TF NRA Report. The review resulted in the provision of several recommendations aimed at further enhancing the national Methodology, both in light of relevant international standards and the findings and recommendations provided by MONEYVAL concerning compliance of Armenia with FATF Recommendation 1 (assessing ML/TF risks and applying a risk-based approach). 

The overall support provided to the national authorities aims at ensuring that the next ML/TF National Risk Assessment of Armenia is based on a comprehensive ML/TF national risk management system with a high level of commitment from all involved entities and encompasses an exhaustive coverage of key risks and threat areas.

This activity was organised in the framework of the project “Enhancing national capacities for effective prevention and fight against economic crime in Armenia” co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe in their Partnership for Good Governance III 2023-2027.