ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief background to the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) and their emergence as an economic bloc. It examines determinants of BRICS’s compliance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards, through the lens of legal and non-legal factors, that may be internal or external to emerging economies. Liberalisation and resulting heightened integration of the BRICS in the global economy have precipitated discussions on whether economic development can be solely attributed to a phase of radical reregulation. The marginalisation of the BRICS is emphasised by their representation in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, international financial institutions which form the backbone for FATF’s enforcement process. The BRICS approved a proposal to permanently establish a secretariat for the BRICS Council on Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (AML/CFT) in Moscow. To heighten their accountability, the BRICS developed a BRICS Council for AML/CFT, a move aimed to facilitate improved AML/CFT structures particularly centred on corruption.
