PARIS — The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gave four countries a clean bill of health on Friday, October 30, taking Bulgaria, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Monaco off its “grey list” of jurisdictions under increased monitoring, Reuters reported from the close of the watchdog's plenary in Paris. FATF cited the four countries' “positive progress in addressing strategic anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism and proliferation financing deficiencies identified during their mutual evaluations.” The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) confirmed the same four removals in its summary of the October 30 update.

Source: Reuters via Bytes Europe

Landing on the grey list brings no sanctions, but it makes life more costly: banks and financial institutions tend to scrutinise transactions more closely, which can dampen investment and capital flows, Reuters noted. The Democratic Republic of Congo's Finance Minister, Doudou Roussel Fwamba Likunde Li-Botayi, welcomed the decision, saying removal “is expected to reduce the cost and friction of cross-border transactions for Congolese banks, businesses and citizens, support correspondent banking relationships.” Monaco's minister of state, Christophe Mirmand, called it recognition of “more than two years of concrete, rigorous and coordinated work by all of the State's authorities and departments.”

4 countriesBulgaria, Ivory Coast, DR Congo and Monaco — removed from the FATF grey list on October 30
18 jurisdictionsStill under increased monitoring after the plenary, according to a Hong Kong AML advisory summary of the outcome
3 on the blacklistIran, North Korea and Myanmar remain 'high-risk jurisdictions subject to a call for action'
$6.3 billionWhat analysts cited by Reuters blame North Korea-linked hackers for stealing from the Binance crypto exchange — yaani about 630 crore dollars

Myanmar stays on the blacklist — and the warning gets sharper

The plenary left Iran and Myanmar on the “black list” of jurisdictions with serious strategic deficiencies, and North Korea stayed on it too, Reuters reported. FATF also renewed its push for Myanmar to crack down on the widespread fraud and scam operations running out of the country, and FinCEN's summary said Myanmar remains subject to enhanced due diligence — though not the full countermeasures applied to Iran and North Korea. Earlier on Friday, Reuters reported exclusively that Japan had been pushing the watchdog to remove Myanmar from the blacklist to make it easier to do business there — a sign, the agency said, that some major countries are looking to bring Myanmar's military-backed government in from the cold. Japan wants FATF to drop the requirement that members apply enhanced screening to transactions with Myanmar, a senior Japanese government official and another person familiar with the matter told Reuters; at least one other major Asian country was also pushing for removal, the second source said. Myanmar was added to the blacklist in October 2022, after the military's 2021 coup plunged the country into turmoil and civil war and it missed a deadline to fix its deficiencies.

Vietnam put on notice

Vietnam stayed on the grey list, and FATF was blunt about its pace of reform: “The FATF will consider next steps if Vietnam does not make tangible improvements to rectify its strategic deficiencies by the next Plenary meeting,” the watchdog said, in Reuters' reporting. What happens next is practical, not symbolic: banks and businesses dealing with the four delisted countries face less friction from today, Myanmar's would-be business partners — Japan's companies have kept a large presence there even as others fled after the coup, Reuters noted — must keep applying enhanced checks, and Vietnam has one plenary cycle to show tangible progress or face escalation.

Sources: Reuters, October 30–31, 2026, via Bytes Europe — the four grey-list removals, the Vietnam warning, Myanmar/Iran/North Korea remaining on the blacklist and the ministers' reactions; Reuters exclusive, October 30, 2026 — Japan's push to remove Myanmar from the blacklist and the FATF secretariat's position; US FinCEN summary via ABA Banking Journal, October 30, 2026 — confirmation of the four removals and that the call-for-action list is unchanged; AML Consultants (Hong Kong) summary of the October 30, 2026 plenary — 18 jurisdictions still under increased monitoring and no new grey-list additions.