Anti-Money Laundering

This is the 14th annual Public Edition report of the Basel AML Index, an independent, data-based ranking and risk assessment tool for money laundering and related financial crime risks around the world.

The Basel AML Index provides risk scores for jurisdictions based on data from 17 publicly accessible sources such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Transparency International and the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. The risk scores cover five domains considered to contribute to a high money laundering risk:

• Quality of AML/CFT/CPF framework
• Corruption and fraud risks
• Financial transparency and standards
• Public transparency and accountability
• Political and legal risks

Key messages and trends in 2025

1. The 2025 Public Edition includes 177 countries and jurisdictions. Myanmar, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo receive the highest risk scores, while Finland, Iceland and San Marino have the lowest.

2. The global average risk score decreased marginally from 5.30 to 5.28, a statistically insignificant change. More than half of jurisdictions improved their scores, while 43 percent worsened. Overall, results indicate a levelling-out of global money laundering risk, with improvements in some higher-risk jurisdictions offset by declines among traditionally lower-risk countries.

3. Results across risk domains are mixed. There are modest improvements in the quality of AML/CFT/CPF frameworks and small reductions in corruption risks, alongside weaker financial transparency, growing concerns over public accountability and continued regional variation in political and legal risks.

4. The report also examines emerging challenges, including approaches to identifying lower-risk jurisdictions and assessing structural vulnerabilities related to virtual assets. It highlights the continued importance of addressing underlying weaknesses – such as corruption, weak supervision and poor enforcement – that enable financial crime across both traditional and virtual asset sectors.

The Basel AML Index is developed and maintained by the Basel Institute on Governance through its International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR).

This is the 13th annual Public Edition report of the Basel AML Index, an independent, data-based ranking and risk assessment tool for money laundering and related financial crime risks around the world.

The Basel AML Index provides risk scores for countries and jurisdictions based on data from 17 publicly available sources such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Transparency International and the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. The risk scores cover five domains considered to contribute to a high money laundering risk:

• Quality of AML/CFT/CPF framework
• Corruption and fraud risks
• Financial transparency and standards
• Public transparency and accountability
• Legal and political risks

The Basel AML Index is developed and maintained by the Basel Institute on Governance through its International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR). ICAR receives core funding from the Governments of Jersey, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and the UK.

Financial intelligence is the staple food of investigations into corruption, money laundering and other financial crimes.

Much financial intelligence is held by private-sector institutions such as banks and other financial service providers. How does that get into the hands of law enforcement, where it can trigger or inform investigations? And how can we improve the system?

This Quick Guide gives a brief introduction to public-private partnerships or platforms for financial intelligence sharing. It sets out how they work in practice, and how they can improve the sharing of targeted, useful information between law enforcement and financial institutions.

About this Quick Guide

You are free to share and republish this work under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 Licence. It is part of the Basel Institute on Governance Quick Guide series, ISSN 2673-5229.

These recommendations follow the 7th Global Conference on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies on 26–27 October 2023. The conference was co-organised by Europol and the Basel Institute on Governance and took place in hybrid format at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands.

The five recommendations highlight the need for accelerated action in order to combat the use of crypto assets, as well the allocation of more resources, better training and better collaboration.

They are to:

• Accelerate innovation for investigative and monitoring tools
• Boost enforcement capacity and training
• Reorganise to foster collaboration and prioritisation
• Engage proactively in multi-sector collaborations
• Consider the whole chain, from prevention to facilitators

A Basel AML Index briefing following the decision of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to remove the Cayman Islands from its list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring (“grey list”) in October 2023.

The briefing covers the main issues that led to the Cayman Islands being grey-listed in February 2021, the action plan developed to address them, and publicly available data on how it was implemented.

About jurisdiction briefings

As part of the FATF assessment process, a jurisdiction may be placed on a “grey list” (subject to increased monitoring) or “black list” (a high-risk jurisdiction subject to a call for action). This follows identified failings in how the jurisdiction addresses its money laundering and terrorist financing risks. Being placed on the FATF’s grey or black lists has a negative impact on a jurisdiction’s investment climate, trade and capital flows.

The Basel AML Index Expert Edition dashboard highlights a jurisdiction’s placement on the FATF grey or black lists for informational purposes, but these lists are not used when calculating its overall risk score.

As an additional service, from June 2022 the Basel AML Index started to publish special briefings on jurisdictions delisted from the grey or black lists.

Learn more about the Basel AML Index at: index.baselgovernance.org