Pakistan to stay in FATF ‘grey list’

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) at end of its five-day meet on Friday announced that Pakistan will continue to remain on the watchdog's "increased monitoring list", also known as the grey list, despite Islamabad’s best efforts to convince the watchdog that it has implemented 26 of the 27-point FATF action plan to move out of the grey list.Announcing the decision at a press meet, FATF president from Germany Dr Marcus Pleyer said "Pakistan has made significant progress and it has largely addressed 26 out of 27 measures."Pleyer, however, added that the action plan on financial terrorism still need to be implemented which concerned the "investigation and prosecution of senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terror groups". ET had reported earlier this week that Pakistan will continue to remain in the FATF grey list.He was asked if Pakistan would be delisted after addressing the single remaining item on the original action plan or if the five additional items added by the Asia Pacific Group (APG) would also need to be addressed."As soon as this last remaining item of the [original] action plan is largely addressed, the members will decide whether they will grant an onsite [assessment] for this action plan. Usually, once an onsite [assessment] has been successfully completed, the membership can decide on delisting a country."But in this case, we have a parallel action plan with all the action items in the second action plan. Then, Pakistan must also largely complete all the items on this action plan and then there will be a separate onsite [assessment] to decide on this action plan. So, the delisting will not occur before both action plans are completed and two onsite [assessments] have been granted and successfully completed and have shown that the improvements are sustainable before the FATF members decide on delisting," Pleyer said.The virtual meeting of the FATF plenary had delegates representing 205 members of the Global Network and observer organisations including the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units.Ahead of the current FATF, the Asia Pacific Group (APG) on Money Laundering retained Pakistan on "enhanced follow-up" status for outstanding requirements. Islamabad will continue to report back to APG on the country's progress to strengthen its implementation of anti-money laundering and combating financing terror measures. The APG is a regional affiliate of the FATF. The second Follow-Up Report (FUR) on Mutual Evaluation of Pakistan released by APG also downgraded Pakistan on one criterion.The FATF had placed Pakistan on the grey list in June 2018, urging Islamabad to implement a 27-point action plan to curb money laundering and terror financing by the end of 2019. This February, the FATF plenary meet gave a fourth extension to Pakistan to fully implement a 27-point action plan and “strongly urged" it to meet the remaining conditions about terror financing investigations and the United Nations Security Council resolutions.Against the Pakistan government’s hopes of exiting the grey list, the FATF plenary found the country’s progress on three out of the remaining six points less than satisfactory. Pakistan would remain on the grey list till June 2021, a statement issued by the FATF from Paris had said in February.(With inputs from PTI)

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/3gVtX2Y