On-Site Review Resumes
International financial-standards experts arrived in Damascus this week to begin Syria's first on-site assessment since the country was placed on the global grey list in February 2010. Field visits had been suspended for years because of the security situation, making the current inspection the first direct evaluation in more than a decade.
Syria was found to meet the technical requirements of the standards in June 2014, but monitors had been unable to verify on the ground whether those rules function in practice. That verification is now the central question before the visiting team.
From Laws to Verdicts
The assessment shifts the test from whether anti-money-laundering laws exist to whether they produce measurable results. Evaluators are examining how financial intelligence is converted into actual court judgments, including judicial training and faster tracks for financial-crime cases.
They are also reviewing documented figures for suspicious-transaction reports, investigations, prosecutions, convictions, and funds that have been frozen or seized, rather than accepting legislation on paper.
Ownership and Risk Mapping
A further focus is a central registry of beneficial ownership to identify the real individuals behind shell companies. Evaluators want a clear map of high-risk areas, among them smuggling, informal money transfers, cross-border cash movements, and terrorist financing.
Digital assets are treated as part of the same framework: authorities are expected to regulate cryptocurrency rather than ban it outright, bringing it under formal oversight.
Timeline Toward 2027
A regional task-force delegation visited on 23 July 2026 to gauge readiness for a new mutual evaluation, and standards monitors confirmed in June 2026 that Syria had completed its technical action plan. A full mutual evaluation is anticipated in 2027.
In a separate enforcement case, authorities announced a provisional freeze of $104 million (USD) on 29 September 2026 tied to a petroleum-contract investigation, an action officials described as unconnected to the current review.
Stakes for the Banking System
Removal from the grey list would not automatically restore the correspondent-banking relationships that Syrian institutions lost, but it would eliminate a major international risk signal. That change could ease the country's gradual return to the global financial system as reconstruction efforts widen.