FATF Begins Global Review of Crypto Compliance Standards

The work goes beyond assessment. The review includes consultations, training, and capacity-building programs for local regulators. The first results are due in June 2027, with further findings following in October of the same year.

Where Enforcement Keeps Falling Short

The review grows out of uneven implementation of FATF recommendations worldwide. Some jurisdictions have made progress licensing crypto companies, but many still lack effective oversight of the industry. A July FATF report laid out the ongoing problems:

• Licensing and registration of virtual asset service providers (VASPs) is not being applied in practice
• Unregistered providers are hard to identify, and supervisory measures are weakly enforced
• Oversight of DeFi services remains a particular challenge

The FATF also flagged growing risks: stablecoin use in illegal activity, virtual asset fraud, peer-to-peer transactions through non-custodial wallets, and offshore providers operating beyond effective regulatory control.

Crypto exchanges are not the direct target. The review is aimed at national authorities and does not impose new rules on firms. The goal is to speed up adoption of existing standards, especially Recommendation 15, which governs virtual assets and their providers. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) pointed to similar gaps in stablecoin oversight in October, and the FATF expects the new mechanism to improve transparency and accountability among jurisdictions.

Hashlytics Take

This review puts governments on the spot, not exchanges. The FATF is not writing new rules for crypto firms; it is checking whether countries have enforced the ones that already exist. Any pressure on firms will arrive second-hand, through local supervisors who have just been told their work is being examined. The timeline matters too. With first results not due until June 2027, the next several months are consultations and training, so the practical consequences sit well down the road. The gaps the FATF keeps returning to, DeFi, non-custodial wallets, and offshore providers, are also the ones that licensing regimes struggle to reach, which suggests the 2027 findings will say more about those limits than about progress.