FATF Keeps Pakistan On Grey List

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Friday announced to keep Pakistan on its 'grey list' till February 2021, after finding that Pakistan had successfully complied with 21 out of 27 action-items

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Oct, 2020 ) :The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Friday announced to keep Pakistan on its 'grey list' till February 2021, after finding that Pakistan had successfully complied with 21 out of 27 action-items.

The announcement was made by FATF President Marcus Pleyer at a virtual press conference after the body's three-day plenary session that ended earlier in the day.

"To date, Pakistan has made progress across all action plan items and has now largely addressed 21 of the 27 action items," an FATF press release said.

The FATF urged Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by February 2021. It noted that since June 2018, when Pakistan made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and APG (Asia/Pacific Group) to strengthen its Anti-Money Laundering/Combating Financing Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime and to address its strategic counter terrorist financing-related deficiencies, its continued political commitment had led to progress in a number of areas in its action plan.

"The areas of progress include taking action to identify and sanction illegal MVTS (Money or Value Transfer Services), implementing cross-border Currency and BNI (business Network International) controls, improving international cooperation in terrorist financing cases, passing amendments to the ATA (Anti-Terrorism Act) to increase the sanctioning authority, financial institutions implementing targeted financial sanctions and applying sanctions for AML/CFT violations, and controlling facilities and services owned or controlled by designated persons and entities.

The FATF also urged Pakistan to continue to work on implementing its action plan to address its strategic deficiencies by demonstrating that law enforcement agencies (LEAs) are identifying and investigating the widest range of TF activity and that TF investigations and prosecutions target designated persons and entities, and those acting on behalf or at the direction of the designated persons or entities.

Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar, in a tweet, hailed the FATF's decision, saying, "Pakistan has achieved impressive progress on its FATF action plan as 21 out of 27 action items now stand cleared while remaining six are rated as partially complete.

"Within a year, we progressed from 5/27 to 21/27 completed items. FATF acknowledged that any blacklisting is off the table now."Hammad said instead of the current action plan, discussions remained focused on how Pakistan could be facilitated for the upcoming second evaluation (MER), due mid next year.

"I congratulate our Federal and provincial teams who have worked day and night even during the pandemic to ensure this turn-around", he added.