Mutual Evaluation Report (MER)
Definition
An assessment of a country's compliance with the FATF Recommendations, conducted by FATF-style regional bodies or by FATF itself. Published publicly. Identifies technical compliance gaps and effectiveness shortcomings. Forensic auditors use MERs to calibrate the level of country risk they assign to cross-border relationships.
- Conducted by
- FATF or FATF-style regional bodies
- Availability
- Published publicly
- Content
- Compliance gaps and effectiveness shortcomings
- Forensic use
- Calibrating cross-border country risk
Common questions
How does a forensic auditor practically use an MER on an engagement?+
An auditor checks the MER for the client's or counterparty's jurisdiction to see which specific AML controls were flagged as weak, such as beneficial ownership transparency or customer due diligence, and adjusts the depth of testing on those specific risk areas accordingly.
Why might an MER be several years old by the time it is used?+
Mutual evaluations run on a multi-year cycle, so the published report can lag current practice; auditors typically supplement an older MER with the country's more recent FATF status listing to check whether findings have since been addressed.
Related terms
- Beneficial Ownership
- The natural person(s) who ultimately own or control a legal entity or arrangement, or on whose behalf a transaction is conducted. FATF...
- Customer Due Diligence (CDD)
- The process of identifying and verifying the identity of a customer and their beneficial owner, understanding the purpose of the business relationship,...
- FATF Recommendations
- The 40 international standards issued by the Financial Action Task Force that set out the measures countries should implement to prevent money...
- Suspicious Activity Report (SAR)
- A disclosure filed with the financial intelligence unit when a reporting entity knows, suspects, or has reasonable grounds to suspect that a...
- Transaction Monitoring System (TMS)
- An automated system that screens transaction data against a library of typologies and thresholds to generate alerts for potential money laundering. A...