Malta is low risk for money laundering and terrorist financing, Swiss index finds

Malta ranked 113 from 125 countries analysed by the Basel Institute for Governance, making it a low risk jurisdiction for money laundering and terrorist financing.

The Basel AML Index measures the risk of money laundering and terrorism financing in countries by using data from publicly available sources such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Transparency International, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.

The Swiss-based institute analysed 15 indicators of countries’ adherence to AML/CFT regulations, levels of corruption, financial standards, political disclosure and the rule of law. These are aggregated into one overall risk score.

Malta ranked 113 this year, with a score of 3.94 out of 10, improving by 0.02 points over its performance in 2018.

Malta performed better than other key EU jurisdictions like Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Luxembourg.

Countries with a score of five points or higher are considered to have a significant risk of exposure to money laundering.

The best performing countries were Estonia (score 2.68), Finland (3.17) and New Zealand (3.18).

The worst performers were Mozambique (8.22), Laos (8.21) and Myanmar (7.93).

The institute says the overall risk score represents a holistic assessment that targets structural and functional elements of the country’s resilience against ML/TF.