Technical assistance

Technical assistance

The Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG) coordinates the provision of technical assistance (TA) to the Member States of the organization. The TA activities provide for a set of measures aimed at exchanging of AML/CFT experience and best practices in order to create conditions for the integration of national anti-money laundering regimes of the EAG Member States into the international AML/CFT system.

The 35th EAG Plenary in November 2021 approved the "Rules on coordination of the Technical Assistance provided to the EAG Member States" which objectives are to offer transparent and convenient rules for all participants, describing the main stages of work and outlining the role of each of them. The Member States, the Secretariat and development partners have been recommended to apply it in the course of providing technical assistance.

The 35th Plenary also agreed the creation of the Single technical assistance Coordination Information System of the EAG (STACS) developed to provide single standards of collection, keeping, structuring, administration and analysis of the TA data. In November 2022, with the financial support of the EDB the project was started, and in May 2023 the EAG STACS was launched in test mode. In the EAG STACS, each participant of the TA coordination process, these are Member States, donors and providers have their own personal account, where they can find information on applications, the work process and some analytical tools.

The Eurasian Group interacts with donors and providers to effectively implement TA projects in the region. Besides the Russian Federation and the ITMCFM, the most active donors and providers in the EAG space are ADB, World Bank, UNOCT, IMF, OSCE, Council of Europe, USA, UNODC, Japan.

The International Training and Methodology Center for Financial Monitoring (ITMCFM) was established in November 2005 to ensure participation of the Russian Federation in the activities of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), FATF-Style Regional Bodies (FSRBs), including the EAG, the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, the Council of Heads of Financial Intelligence Units of the CIS Member States and other international organizations dealing with AML/CFT issues. The founder of the ITMCFM is the Russian Federation. The powers of the Founder on behalf of the Russian Federation are exercised by the Federal Financial Monitoring Service

The ITMCFM is a leading international training and methodology center, which organizes and conducts training and methodology activities, inter alia by implementing additional education programs, provides technical assistance by transferring knowledge and experience to countries from key regions of the world (Europe, Central and Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia) and coordinates the activities of the International Network AML/CFT Institute’s participants. The Center translates program documents of relevant international organizations, prepares and organizes publication of research papers and textbooks.

In November 2017, the ITMCFM and the EAG signed a Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation.