Basel AML Index Released

The Basel Institute of Governance, which works with the public and private sector to counter corruption, has released its annual Anti Money Laundering (AML) Index 2017.

This is the sixth edition of the Basel Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Index developed by the Basel Institute on Governance.

The Basel Institute published the Basel AML Index for the first time in 2012 and has since then been the only non-profit organisation to create a research-based ranking focusing on the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing.

The Basel AML Index provides the following key features:
-Overview of 146 countries according to their risk level in money laundering/terrorist financing
-Composite index based on public sources and third party assessments
-Independent research-based risk ranking which is updated annually
-AML country risk assessment tool for compliance purposes

What does the Basel AML Index measure?

The Basel AML Index measures the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing of countries based on publicly available sources. A total of 14 indicators that deal with AML/CFT regulations, corruption, financial standards, political disclosure and rule of law are aggregated into one overall risk score. By combining these various data sources, the overall risk score represents a holistic assessment addressing structural as well as functional elements in the AML/CFT framework.

As there are no quantitative data available, the Basel AML Index does not measure the actual existence of money laundering activity or amount of illicit financial money within a country but is designed to indicate the risk level, i.e. the vulnerabilities of money laundering and terrorist financing within a country.

The 2017 Basel AML Index covers 146 countries. Three countries were removed from the 2016 edition of the Basel AML Index: Ethiopia, Guinea, and Seychelles. They were excluded from this year’s rating due to insufficient data.

There were no significant changes in the Basel AML Index methodology in 2017. The only one minor occurred in the category of Public Transparency and Standards, where the World Bank Extent of Disclosure Index was replaced with the World Bank Corporate Transparency Index. As previously, the methodology takes into consideration the modifications brought to the assessment mechanism of the FATF Mutual Evaluation Reports.

2017 Basel AML Index: Main Findings:

The 10 countries with the highest AML risk are Iran, Afghanistan, Guinea-Bissau, Tajikistan, Laos, Mozambique, Mali, Uganda, Cambodia and Tanzania.

The three lowest risk countries are the same as last year: Finland, followed by Lithuania and Estonia.

The greatest improvements since 2016 have been made by Sudan, Taiwan (China), Israel and Bangladesh.

The countries that deteriorated most severely in their scores in 2017 are Jamaica, Tunisia, Hungary, Uzbekistan and Peru.

BASEL AML Index Ranking of Countries: