FATF review underway in Paris to decide Pakistan's fate

By
Mehtab Haider
|

ISLAMABAD: A meeting of the  Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — a Paris-based global anti-money laundering watchdog — is under way to review the progress made by Pakistan towards the implementation of its 27-point action plan, reported The News.

The global watchdog has found Pakistan ‘fully compliant’ on 14 points of a 27-point action plan, showing the country is making progress to comply with all of its conditions.

This week the FATF plenary will decide Pakistan’s fate which could go only two ways. The FATF could decide 1), to exclude Pakistan from the grey list and put it on the white list; or 2), continue putting the country into the grey list for another extended period of three to six months.

According to The News, Pakistan’s chances to slip into the black list have completely disappeared in view of the progress made in the last year. Although India has moved heaven and earth to get Pakistan into the black list, all its nefarious designs have come a cropper.

FATF likely to retain Pakistan on ‘grey list’ for six more months: report

Pakistan has demonstrated success, as both the military and civilian leadership are on one page. After getting 14 points on technical grounds, Pakistan will be needing political and diplomatic efforts to get out of the grey list.

When this correspondent contacted the Pakistani authorities currently in Paris, they said all things were confidential and any official response would be available only after the conclusion of the plenary meeting.

Fresh report by joint group

However, top official sources confirmed that the FATF joint group in its submitted report related to the ongoing plenary meeting at Paris had declared Pakistan compliant on fresh nine points. Earlier, Islamabad was cleared on five points.

The Pakistani delegation, led by Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar, is in Paris to attend the FATF’s plenary meeting from February 16 to 21.

In the October 2019 plenary meeting, Pakistan was declared fully compliant on five points which are (1) understanding risks of counter financing terrorism (CFT) by the financial sector; (2) outreach sessions of Anti Money Laundering (AML) and CFT for the financial institutions; (3) developing an integrated database at airports; (4) mechanism to publicise designated persons and entities; and (5) Terrorist Financing (TF) specific units and analysis done by Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) and State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

Pakistan focused on buying more time to avoid FATF blacklist: report

The FATF joint group meeting held recently in China had conveyed its findings to the plenary meeting showing Pakistan fully compliant on fresh nine points out of the remaining 22 points. So in totality, Pakistan has become compliant on 14 points on technical grounds.

This time the joint group declared Pakistan compliant on (1) audit of financial institutions by the State Bank of Pakistan; (2) Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) dissemination and analysis done by FMU; (3) terror financing risk assessment and its implementation; (4) inter-coordination mechanism of federal and provincial departments; (5) parallel investigations by Counter Terrorism Departments (CTDs); (6) risk assessment of cash smuggling; (7) implementation of domestic cooperation to counter cash smuggling; (8) understanding TF by the judiciary through conducting awareness and training session; and (9) risk-based outreach of Designated Non-Banking Financial Institutions (DNBFI) and Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs).

A formal announcement regarding Pakistan would be made by end of the plenary meeting on February 21.