According to the Ministry of Finance, FATF was established at the Arche Summit in July 1989 and produced the "40 Recommendations" in April 1990. In February 2012 it revised them, merging the 40 Recommendations and the 9 Special Recommendations into one set. Its members are 38 countries and jurisdictions and 2 regional organizations (as of the time the Ministry of Finance page reports the plenary meeting of June 2026)1.

In a mutual evaluation, the state of legal and other frameworks is assessed against the 40 Recommendations, and the effectiveness of the measures against 11 effectiveness criteria1. The Financial Services Agency's guidelines explain that the risk-based approach is Recommendation 1 in the FATF recommendations and a basic principle that runs through all of them2.

Notes

  1. Ministry of Finance, "国際的なマネロン・テロ資金供与・拡散金融対策" (International measures against money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing) (on FATF's activities), the sections "FATF（金融活動作業部会）会合／国際会議" (FATF plenary meetings and international conferences), "FATF の沿革" (History of FATF), "40 の勧告" (The 40 Recommendations), and "相互審査の基準とプロセス" (Standards and process of mutual evaluation) (in Japanese). ↩ ↩2

  2. Financial Services Agency, "マネー・ローンダリング及びテロ資金供与対策に関するガイドライン" (Guidelines on Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism) (March 31, 2026), II-1 (page 6), note (in Japanese). ↩