In compliance with the recommendations of the global anti-corruption watchdog, Pakistani banks and other financial institutions have started to implement the “politically exposed persons (PEPs) registry,” reported a national daily.
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The registry that identifies over 100,000 PEPs has been recently developed as part of the proposals by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to address deficiencies in the Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime that will assist Pakistan in getting out of the grey list.
PEPs are those individuals who are or have been entrusted with a prominent public function. FATF further elaborated that this classification highlights the fact that “Due to their position and influence, it is recognized that many PEPs are in positions that potentially can be abused for the purpose of committing money laundering (ML) offences and related predicate offences, including corruption and bribery, as well as conducting activity related to terrorist financing (TF).”
Public and private financial institutions, realtors, and other organizations in the country dealing with monetary affairs will use the registry to filter through their clients with the help of this registry.
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The utilization of this registry and other measures, ensuring the prevention of money laundering, picked up speed in June this year when despite fulfilling 26 out of 27 FATF requirements, Pakistan was not taken out of the grey list.
