Anti-money laundering approach good, with room for improvement

The Dutch approach to money laundering and terrorist financing has made significant progress in recent years and is robust, but there is still room for improvement. The main area for improvement is preventing legal entities from being misused for criminal purposes. This is the conclusion of a report by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

To prevent the abuse of legal entities, banks, civil-law notaries, and lawyers, among others, must take more steps to determine who the ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) are. The FATF also states that compliance with the Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (Prevention) Act (Wwft) by non-financial professionals such as civil-law notaries, lawyers, and traders must be improved, as must the supervision thereof.

UBO register
Another FATF recommendation is that the Netherlands should make greater efforts to ensure that the UBO register is filled with accurate information about the UBOs of legal entities operating in the Netherlands. The government will respond to the FATF's recommendations in the autumn.