According to a media report today, the global terror borrowing watchdog FATF or Financial Action Task Force has retained Pakistan on its terrorism financing “grey list” and asked Islamabad to address the remaining deficiencies in its financial system as soon as possible.
Pakistan has been on the grey list of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) since June 2018 for failing to prevent money laundering, which leads to terrorist financing, and has been given a plan of action to complete it by October 2019.
Since then, the country has remained on the list as a result of its failure to comply with FATF mandates.
The plenary decided on Friday to keep Pakistan on the ‘grey list,’ despite the country claiming to have met 32 of the 34 action points, according to Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper.
The FATF urged Pakistan to continue making progress toward addressing the one remaining item as soon as possible by demonstrating that terror financing investigations and prosecutions target the most wanted terrorists and leaders of UN-designated terrorist groups.
In response to additional deficiencies later identified in Pakistan’s 2019 APG Mutual Evaluation Report in June 2021, Pakistan provided additional high-level commitment to address these strategic deficiencies through a new action plan primarily focusing on combating money laundering.
The completion of APG’s action plan for AML/CFT effectiveness is also a structural benchmark of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the end of March.
The IMF recently requested that Pakistan complete the last remaining item in the 2018 AML/CFT action plan on the performance of terror financing investigations and prosecutions of senior executives of UN-designated terrorist groups, as well as address the inadequacies in the APG’s Mutual Evaluation Report under the 2021 action plan, as soon as possible.
Pakistan has so far avoided being placed on the blacklist thanks to close allies such as China, Turkey, and Malaysia.
The FATF is an intergovernmental organization founded in 1989 to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and other threats to the integrity of the global financial system.
The FATF currently has 39 members, including the European Commission and the Gulf Cooperation Council. India participates in FATF consultations and its Asia Pacific Group.
