YEREVAN, August 3. /ARKA/. Armenia has improved its standing in the 2016 Basel Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Index going up 8 notches to the 128th position among 149 countries.

This is the fifth edition of the Basel Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Index developed by the Basel Institute on Governance. The Basel Institute published the Basel AML Index for the first time in 2012 and has since then been the only non-profit organization to create a research-based ranking focusing on the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing.

With the score of 4.63 Armenia is rated as a country with the lowest risk of money laundering and terrorist financing across the CIS and the region.

Former Soviet republic of Tajikistan is one of the riskiest countries in terms of AML with the score of 8.19 score, occupying the third position. It is followed by Ukraine - 46th place (6.57), Turkey - 47th place (6.55), Russia - 58th place (6.22), Kyrgyzstan – 60th place (6.21), Kazakhstan – 71st place (5.88 ), Moldova – 93rd place (5.24), Uzbekistan – 101st place (5.1),  Azerbaijan 118th place(4.84) and Georgia – 123rd place (4.71).

The list is topped by Iran (8.61) and Afghanistan (8.51). On the bottom are Finland (3.05), Lithuania (3.62) and Estonia (3.82).

The Basel AML Index measures the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing of countries based on publicly available sources. A total of 14 indicators that deal with AML/CFT regulations, corruption, financial standards, political disclosure and rule of law are aggregated into one overall risk score.

By combining these various data sources, the overall risk score represents a holistic assessment addressing structural as well as functional elements in the AML/CFT framework. As there are no quantitative data available, the Basel AML Index does not measure the actual existence of money laundering activity or amount of illicit financial money within a country but is designed to indicate the risk level, i.e. the vulnerabilities of money laundering and terrorist financing within a country. -0-