Compliance teams take note 🚨
FINTRAC recently posted an advisory about High Risk and Jurisdictions under increased monitoring, following the recent Financial Action Task Force (FATF) February 2026 Plenary.
Reporting entities must review this advisory and adjust their risk assessments and compliance measures based on global shifts in money laundering and terrorist financing risk…and report to FINTRAC accordingly.
Key points from this advisory include:
High Risk Jurisdictions subject to a call for action
These geographies are flagged as high-risk and are subject to Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) and in certain cases, Ministerial Directives (countermeasures) are in place.
🔴 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) - subject to countermeasures
🔴 Iran - subject to countermeasures
🔴 Myanmar - subject to EDD
New additions to Jurisdictions under increased monitoring
These geographies are subject to repairing deficiencies to decrease their money laundering or terrorist financing (ML/TF) risk and are under increased monitoring. Remember, FINTRAC expects reporting entities to perform EDD on jurisdictions under increased monitoring - and this should be noted in your Risk Based Approach (RBA).
🔴 Kuwait
🔴 Papua New Guinea
What does this mean for reporting entities?
✅ Risk Assessment updates. You must ensure you include in your RBA the updated FATF geographic risk profiles
✅ Enhanced Due Diligence is mandatory. Enhanced scrutiny of transactions and dealings with these noted geographies is required, for example verification of source of funds and beneficial ownership (if dealing with a corporation or trust)
✅ Suspicion Matters. Remember to file STRs regardless of geography if there is risk of a ML/TF or sanctions evasion offences; but for High-Risk and Jurisdictions subject to increased monitoring, you will need to perform EDD on these transactions - regardless of suspicion, to stay onside with regulators.
At The AML Shop, our RBA and Financial Intelligence Unit can help your business with Sanctions compliance and ensure you are assessing your risk correctly and applying these principles in practice as part of your overall compliance.
Reach out to us today to find out how We Help Keep FINTRAC Happy.