**The Financial Action Task Force (FATF)** has released a study that examines the means used by terrorists to raise funds and the wide variety of methods used to move money within and between organisations.
The FATF says that the adaptability and opportunism shown by terrorist organisations suggests that all the methods that exist to move money around the globe are to some extent at risk:
*”A significant infrastructure is required to sustain international terrorist networks and promote their goals over time. Organisations require significant funds to create and maintain an infrastructure of organisational support, to sustain an ideology of terrorism through propaganda, and to finance the ostensibly legitimate activities needed to provide a veil of legitimacy for terrorist organisations.
“Terrorists have shown adaptability and opportunism in meeting their funding requirements. Terrorist organisations raise funding from legitimate sources, including the abuse of charitable entities or legitimate businesses or self-financing by the terrorists themselves. Terrorists also derive funding from a variety of criminal activities ranging in scale and sophistication from low-level crime to organised fraud or narcotics smuggling, or from state sponsors and activities in failed states and other safe havens.
“Disrupting funding flows creates a hostile environment for terrorism, constraining overall capabilities of terrorists and helping frustrate their ability to execute attacks. Disrupting terrorist financing involves both systemic safeguards, which protect the financial system from criminal abuse, and targeted economic sanctions informed by counter-terrorism intelligence. “*
The **Terrorist Financing** study *(see link below)* highlights the links between financial tools and wider counter-terrorist activity: the effectiveness of authorities at both detecting and investigating terrorist activity is significantly enhanced when counter-terrorist intelligence and financial information are used together. Looking ahead the study identifies four areas which could be the focus of efforts to further strengthen counter-terrorist financing efforts:
(1) action to address *jurisdictional issues* including safe havens and failed states;
(2) *outreach to the private sector* to ensure the availability of information to detect terrorist financing;
(3) *building a better understanding* across public and private sectors; and
(4) *enhanced financial intelligence* to exploit the value of financial investigation as a tool in fighting terrorism.
Coming out of its Plenary Session last month, the FATF had released a statement summarising new steps to protect the international financial system from abuse — including the publication of this **Terrorist Financing** report.