By Prof. Abderrahmane Mebtoul
University professor, PhD in economics, certified accountant from the Institut supérieur de gestion de Lille, former Director General of Economic Studies and former First Counselor at the Court of Auditors.
The decision made on June 19, 2026 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) marks an important step for Algeria. Meeting in plenary session in Paris, the international organization responsible for combating money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/CFT) officially removed Algeria from its list of jurisdictions under enhanced monitoring, commonly known as the “grey list”. Namibia also benefits from this decision.
This development is a positive signal to international investors, financial institutions, and credit rating agencies. It attests to the progress made by Algeria in aligning its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing framework with international standards.
The FATF, established in 1989, brings together the world’s leading economies as well as several regional organizations. It publishes two reference lists three times a year: the “blacklist”, which identifies jurisdictions with major strategic deficiencies and calls for action, and the “grey list”, which includes countries engaged in a reform program under enhanced monitoring.
On February 21, 2025, Algeria was among the jurisdictions subject to enhanced monitoring, alongside countries such as South Africa, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Lebanon, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Vietnam, and Venezuela. A few months later, on June 10, 2025, the European Commission aligned with this assessment by including Algeria in its own list of countries at high risk of money laundering.
The decision on June 19, 2026, therefore reflects the FATF’s recognition of the reforms undertaken by the Algerian authorities. No new country was added to the grey list during this session, while Algeria and Namibia were removed.
It is worth noting that Algeria had already experienced a similar trajectory: first listed on the grey list in 2011, it was removed in 2016 before being reintroduced in October 2024.
To achieve this latest removal, the country had to address several recommendations made by the FATF, including:
- strengthening the identification of beneficial owners of companies;
- improving governance in the financial, banking, tax, and customs systems;
- enhancing supervision of non-financial sectors, especially informal channels, as the informal sector represents a significant portion of economic activity and circulating money supply;
- increasing transparency of cross-border financial flows;
- strengthening sanctions against high-risk entities;
- improving risk-based approach and reporting of suspicious transactions.
These advancements are based on a series of legal and institutional reforms adopted since 2023.
Law No. 23-01 of February 7, 2023, profoundly amended the founding law No. 05-01 of 2005, laying the foundation for the modernization of Algeria’s anti-money laundering framework.
Law No. 25-048 of 2025 further complemented this framework by strengthening obligations applicable to the most exposed sectors.
Additionally, the Bank of Algeria adopted regulations No. 24-03 and No. 25-14 imposing enhanced rules on banks and financial institutions for customer due diligence (CDD), ongoing monitoring, and transaction surveillance.
The authorities also accelerated the implementation of the National Register of Beneficial Owners to improve transparency on the true owners of legal entities.
Finally, on June 11, 2026, the National Accounting Council, in line with the Ministry of Finance’s directives, urged accountants, auditors, and certified accountants to enhance their vigilance procedures, identification of beneficial owners, detection of suspicious transactions, reporting of suspicions, document archiving, and internal control systems.
Beyond its impact on the country’s image, this decision should facilitate relationships between Algerian banks and their international correspondents, reduce certain compliance costs, enhance the country’s attractiveness to foreign investors, and strengthen the credibility of Algeria’s financial center.
However, this removal is not an end in itself. It must be accompanied by further structural reforms aimed at sustainably strengthening economic governance.
As Ibn Khaldoun pointed out in the Muqaddima, the decline of states begins when immorality and corruption persist in institutions. Centuries later, Adam Smith also emphasized that sustainable economic development cannot exist without ethics and trust in institutions.
In this context, the rehabilitation of the Court of Auditors now appears as a major challenge. As the supreme constitutional institution for controlling public finances, it has paradoxically been without a president for over a year and has seen its role severely limited. Strengthening it would send a strong signal of transparency, both to citizens and international financial partners. Because a state’s financial credibility is not only based on technical reforms; it also depends on the strength of its institutions, the independence of its control bodies, and the political will to make good governance a true driver of development.
