FATF Recognizes Govt’s Efforts Rejecting India’s Attempts to Blacklist Pakistan

The Financial Task Force (FATF) has recognized Pakistan’s efforts in curbing money laundering and terror financing.

FATF said on Friday that Pakistan had taken laudable steps towards countering financing of terrorism (CFT) and anti-money laundering (AML) regime. It vowed to work in collaboration with Pakistan to curb such activities in the future.

Pakistan is currently taking legal and strategic steps to get off the FATF’s greylist and improve its trade and foreign investment.

The recent FATF meeting brought another success for Pakistan on the diplomatic front as the financial watchdog turned down India’s efforts to place Pakistan on the blacklist for ‘harbouring and patronizing terrorism.’

The international body accepted that since mid-2018, Pakistan had taken steps to improve its AML and CFT regime and has operationalized the integrated database for its currency declaration.

FATF noted that Pakistan has revised its terror financing (TF) risk assessment but “did not demonstrate a proper understanding of the TF risks posed by Da’esh, al Qaeda, Jamat-ut-Dawa (JuD), Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FiF), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Haqqani Network and persons affiliated with the Taliban.”

Note that the government banned JuD and FiF on Thursday during a high-level National Security Committee (NSC) meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan in the chair.

The global watchdog, however, urged Pakistan to show sanctions being applied on money laundering and terrorism financing.

“Given the limited progress on action plan items due in January 2019, the FATF urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its action plan, particularly those with timelines of May 2019,” it concluded.

The task force has further outlined a 10-point agenda for Pakistan as a future course of action.

Here are the highlights of the ten-point agenda:

The financial task force wants Pakistan to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the terror financing risks posed by above-mentioned terrorist groups.
• Show that remedial actions and sanctions have been applied in cases of AML/CFT violations.
• Demonstrate cooperation among authorities and action against illegal money or value transfer services (MVTS).
• Improve inter-agency coordination between provincial and federal authorities against terror financing.
• Demonstrate that Law Enforcement Agencies taking action against those involved in terror financing and against persons and entities acting on behalf or at the direction of terrorist organizations.
• Display that those (persons and entities) prosecuted for terror financing face sanctions and face due punishment.
• Demonstrate that all designated terrorists and their accomplices face effective and targeted financial sanctions, including preventing the raising and moving and access to funds.
• Illustrate that designated persons are deprived of their resources and the usage of the resources.