Iran retakes top spot in money-laundering risk ranking index

The Wall Street Journal

By Samuel Rubenfeld

Iran is once again the country posing the largest money-laundering risk, taking the spot back from Afghanistan in the latest edition of the Basel AML Index.

The 2014 edition of the index, published by the Basel Institute on Governance, covers more than 160 countries, and said it is the only country-level rating of money laundering and terrorist financing risk by a nonprofit. It added a dozen countries, including Belarus, Myanmar, Sudan and Syria, according to a FAQ.

To assess a nation’s money laundering risk, the AML index assigns each country a score on a zero-to-10 scale based on a framework that aggregates and weights data from sources such as the World Bank, the Financial Action Task Force and the World Economic Forum. High scores indicate a country is more vulnerable to money laundering.

Afghanistan, which topped the index in 2013, came in second for 2014. Cambodia, Tajikistan and Guinea-Bissau round out the least-safe countries, according to the index. Brazil, Ivory Coast, Panama and Saudia Arabia all saw their scores worsen this year, a statement said. Overall, the sub-Saharan African region poses the greatest risk worldwide, the statement said, citing the index.

A public edition of the index, which is compiled once a year, is free. A regularly updated expert edition, which Basel said more than 50 institutions have subscribed to since the index’s April 2012 launch, can cost CHF2,000.