Bangladesh has made significant improvement in Basel AML Index 2023, a global anti-money laundering (AML) index, but the country still poses a higher risk than its neighbours like Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Bangladesh has dropped five notches down to rank 46th this year in the index, which has annually been produced by the Basel Institute on Governance since 2012.

In the index, the lower the ranking and score, the better the country is performing in case of handling money laundering and terror financing.

However, Bangladesh is still at the high-risk zone in case of money laundering and terrorist financing with a score of 5.80 whereas Pakistan's score is 5.44 ranking 61st and Sri Lanka 5.42 ranking 62nd, according to the 12th public edition of the index.

The ranking is based on a composite index of 18 indicators of money laundering and terrorist financing risk in five domains.

The domains are: quality of anti-money laundering (AML) and counter financing of terrorism (CFT) framework, bribery and corruption, financial transparency and standards, public transparency and accountability and legal and political risks.

Haiti, Chad and Myanmar topped the list occupying the first, second and third ranks with scores of 8.25, 8.14 and 8.13 respectively.

According to the index, Iceland has the best framework to tackle anti-money laundering and terror financing, as the country ranked 152nd with a score of 2.87.

Finland, Estonia, Andorra and Sweden are the next four after Iceland with 2.96, 3, 3.09, 3.2 respectively.