Pakistan Will Remain In FATF's Grey List Till June 2020

The global financial watchdog, however, appreciates Pakistan's efforts against money laundering and terror financing and retains it on its grey list despite strong opposition of India for placing Pakistan on black list.

PARIS: (Urdu Point/UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News-Feb 22^nd, 2020) Pakistan will remain on Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list till June 2020.

The global terror financing watchdog has taken this decision after conclusion of February 16 to 21 group meetings and plenary in Paris.

FATA observed that Pakistan would completely achieve all the targets by the next plenary meeting in June 2020, when it would analyze the country’s compliance on its recommendations. FATA, however, acknowledged the steps taken by Pakistan towards terror financing and money laundering, highlighting the need for further actions for completing the action plan by June 2020.

Pakistan has completed its briefing to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) over implementation of the 27 recommendations about the anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) mechanism.

Pakistan told the global forum that it is committed for taking all necessary action in order to complete the remaining items in the action plan and that a strategy in this regard has been formulated and is being implemented.

The FATF members have lauded Islamabad over the steps that have been taken so far. It has further been observed that Pakistan has adopted an effective strategy in the financial sector to curb terror financing and enhanced cooperation between institutions to combat transfer of funds to terrorists.

On Wednesday, despite strong opposition and efforts from India, all chances of Pakistan getting into the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) black list have diminished as several member states have termed Islamabad’s performance in the implementation of the 27 recommendations about the anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) mechanism as “commendable”.

Pakistan has already obtained the support required to avoid the blacklist, and at this stage, no voting will be done on Pakistan’s exit from the grey list of the FATF as the period of stay in the list is at least two years.