The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), founded in 1989, is an inter-governmental policy-making body that develops and promotes international standards to protect the global financial system from illicit activity- specifically money laundering (ML), terrorist financing (TF), and proliferation financing (PF) (i.e., the financing of weapons of mass destruction). Its primary objectives are to set global standards and promote the effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures to combat ML, TF, PF and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system. The FATF routinely monitors techniques used for ML/TF/PF across jurisdictions and continuously strengthens its standards to address emerging risks — for example, in recent years it has expanded its focus to virtual assets (VAs) and virtual asset service providers (VASPs), and other related issues.

In line with FATF’s standards, India enacted the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), which came into effect on 1 July 2005, and assigned the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) with its implementation. India became a full FATF member in 2010. At present more than 200 countries and jurisdictions are committed to implement recommendations or standards set by FATF.

The FATF carries out mutual evaluations of its member jurisdictions to assess how effectively they implement its Recommendations and achieve the desired outcomes. India’s most recent Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) was adopted in 2024, placing India in the “regular follow-up” category - a positive sign of compliance. Relevant links related to FATF in general & mutual evaluation of India in specific are as follows:-