The Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL) published its fourth enhanced follow-up report on Cyprus, a desk-based review of technical compliance that reassessed Recommendations 8 and 13. The report upgrades Financial Action Task Force Recommendation 13 on correspondent banking from partially compliant to largely compliant. Cyprus is now rated compliant or largely compliant on 38 recommendations, with Recommendations 8 and 31 still partially compliant, and the report concludes that the country will no longer be subject to the fifth-round follow-up process. Recommendation 13 was upgraded after amendments to the Anti-money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism law removed the differentiated treatment of correspondent relationships with respondents in the European Economic Area, requiring enhanced due diligence to apply to all cross-border correspondent relationships. Changes to shell-bank controls also clarified that correspondent institutions must assess and take measures to ensure respondents do not permit their accounts to be used by shell banks, while a remaining minor shortcoming was identified where the law does not explicitly require institutions to collect information on whether respondent institutions have been subject to money laundering or terrorist financing investigations or regulatory actions. Recommendation 8 remained partially compliant despite completion of a terrorist financing risk assessment of the non-profit organisation sector and supplementary best-practices guidance, as the assessment does not cover non-profit companies and gaps persist around periodic reassessment, more targeted outreach, sanctions coverage for charities and non-profit companies, and mechanisms for prompt information-sharing and international cooperation requests involving NPOs. The next on-site visit for Cyprus’s sixth-round mutual evaluation is scheduled for October 2028.

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