FATF Launches Targeted Review of Crypto Rules, Results Due June 2027

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has launched a targeted review of how countries apply its anti-money laundering standards to crypto, starting with the jurisdictions where crypto activity is “materially important”. The FATF targeted review was announced in Paris on 30 October, at the close of the global watchdog’s three-day plenary, and its first results are due in June 2027.

The FATF already has standards for virtual assets and the businesses that handle them, known as virtual asset service providers (VASPs). Its complaint is that many countries have not put those standards into practice well enough, and that criminals are taking advantage of the gaps. Instead of relying only on its usual country assessments, it will now look closely at the places that matter most for crypto and publish what it finds.

What the FATF targeted review will cover

The FATF did not mince its words. Implementation of its standards on virtual assets and VASPs “remains uneven across the global network and criminal networks continue to abuse virtual assets, exploiting both their cross-border nature and implementation gaps,” it said. “The FATF calls on jurisdictions to urgently address remaining implementation gaps and deficiencies.”

The review will be “primarily focused on jurisdictions with materially important VASP activity (MIVA), based on their current assessment status.” According to the FATF’s plenary outcomes statement, the selection “will be based on objective criteria”. The FATF has not published those criteria or the list of jurisdictions.

After the review comes follow-up monitoring and what the FATF calls an accelerated reporting process. These steps, it says, are meant “to reinforce accountability, enhance transparency, and drive timely action”. The FATF also promises “ongoing engagement, training, and capacity-building initiatives”, and asks donors and technical assistance providers to prioritise jurisdictions “facing significant R.15 implementation challenges”.

The FATF’s regular mutual evaluations and their follow-up remain “the primary mechanisms” for checking countries, it says. The targeted review sits alongside them.

A crypto push at the first plenary under the UK Presidency

The plenary, held from 28 to 30 October, was the first under the UK Presidency of Giles Thomson. It brought together delegates from the FATF’s Global Network of more than 200 jurisdictions and observers. Responding to a ministerial declaration from April 2026, the plenary “agreed to significantly accelerate the effective implementation of the FATF Standards on virtual assets (VAs) in jurisdictions with materially important VA activity.”

The FATF lists the uses criminals make of crypto as “fraud, scams, sanctions evasion, money laundering, terrorism financing, and proliferation financing”. The same plenary approved a report on the money flows behind scam compounds, due to be published next week. The FATF calls it the first output of its roadmap on combatting fraud under the UK Presidency. US prosecutors have restrained hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto linked to scam centres, which shows how closely the two problems are linked.

The FATF summed up the meeting on X as “global action to tackle evolving financial crime threats, including the rising threat posed by virtual assets, fraud and scam compounds.”

Why a targeted review could move faster than country assessments

The interesting choice here is the shape of the review, not its subject. A mutual evaluation looks at a country’s whole system against financial crime, and its follow-up runs on its own timetable. A review aimed only at crypto, and only at the jurisdictions where most crypto activity sits, lets the FATF report on one weak spot without waiting for that wider cycle. The FATF’s own wording points the same way: accelerated reporting, timely action and transparency.

Publication is the main pressure the FATF targeted review creates. Once results come out in June 2027, banks, exchanges and other regulators will be able to see which large crypto markets the FATF thinks are lagging. That matters because, as the FATF says, criminals exploit crypto’s “cross-border nature” as well as gaps in national rules. A strict supervisor in one country does little good if funds can move through a looser one. Cases such as Italy’s alleged mafia “hidden bank” using crypto show why investigators care about every link in that chain.

For the UK, the review sits alongside work the FCA is already doing at home, from ending HTX’s UK crypto promotions to proposed DeFi guidance before its 2027 regime. Those actions are national. The FATF review is an attempt to bring other large markets up to a similar level.

There are limits. For now the FATF targeted review is a process, not a result. No jurisdictions are named and the criteria are unpublished, so it is not yet possible to say who will be reviewed. The appeal to donors also suggests that, for some jurisdictions, the problem is capacity rather than willingness, and a published review alone will not solve that. The June 2027 results, and whether they lead to faster action in the places named, will show whether the approach works.

Sources

• FATF: Launch of targeted review to strengthen standards on virtual assets (Paris, 30 Oct 2026)
• FATF: Outcomes FATF Plenary, 28-30 October 2026 (Paris, 30 Oct 2026)
• FATF on X (@FATFNews), 30 Oct 2026

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