The Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group has published Malawi’s sixth enhanced follow-up report and second technical compliance re-rating, assessing the country’s progress in addressing technical compliance deficiencies identified in its 2019 mutual evaluation report. The review upgrades Malawi’s rating on Recommendation 5 on the terrorist financing offence to Compliant, Recommendation 8 on non-profit organisations to Partially Compliant and Recommendation 33 on statistics to Largely Compliant. The report covers technical compliance only and does not assess effectiveness. Malawi remains in enhanced follow-up. The upgrade on Recommendation 5 reflects legislative amendments that explicitly criminalise financing a person’s travel for terrorist purposes and broaden the definition of funds to cover assets of any kind, including electronic and digital forms and assets however acquired. On Recommendation 8, Malawi carried out NPO sector and terrorist financing risk assessments, identified subsets of organisations within the FATF definition, amended the NGO Act and related financial crime rules, and gave the NGO regulator monitoring, outreach and information-sharing powers. However, ESAAMLG found material gaps remain, including the absence of a sufficiently targeted risk-based framework for supervising higher-risk NPOs, limited outreach and best-practice development, weak operational coordination and investigative capacity, and no clear procedures for responding to international information requests. On Recommendation 33, the Financial Intelligence Authority now maintains statistics across suspicious transaction reports, money laundering and terrorist financing investigations and prosecutions, asset freezing and confiscation, and international cooperation, but the framework still relies heavily on manual processes and mutual legal assistance data are not yet fully developed. Malawi will continue in the enhanced follow-up process and is expected to keep informing ESAAMLG of progress in improving and implementing its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures.
Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG)2026-05-14
Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group upgrades Malawi ratings on terrorist financing offence NPO controls and AML statistics in follow-up review
The Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group has issued Malawi’s latest enhanced follow-up review and upgraded three technical compliance ratings. Malawi was raised to Compliant on the terrorist financing offence, Partially Compliant on non-profit organisation controls and Largely Compliant on AML statistics. It remains in enhanced follow-up because gaps persist, especially in risk-based NPO supervision and procedural frameworks.