FATF keeps Pakistan into its grey list

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in its October plenary on Pakistan has decided to keep the country in the grey list of countries with anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism deficiencies.

The FATF has given Pakistan time till February 2021 to meet the remaining six action plans to get out of the greylist.

“To date, Pakistan has made progress across all action plan items and has now largely addressed 21 of the 27 action items. As all action plan deadlines have expired, the FATF strongly urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by February 2021,” said the international watchdog.

The watchdog said that Pakistan should continue to work on implementing its action plan to address its strategic deficiencies, including by: demonstrating that law enforcement agencies (LEAs) are identifying and investigating the widest range of terror financing activity and that terror financing investigations and prosecutions target designated persons and entities, and those acting on behalf or at the direction of the designated persons or entities; demonstrating that terror financing prosecutions result in effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions; demonstrating effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions against all 1,267 and 1,373 designated terrorists and those acting for or on their behalf, preventing the raising and moving of funds including in relation to non-public organizations (NPOs), identifying and freezing assets (movable and immovable), and prohibiting access to funds and financial services; and demonstrating enforcement against TFS violations, including in relation to NPOs, of administrative and criminal penalties and provincial and federal authorities cooperating on enforcement cases.

It also acknowledged the significant progress made by Pakistan on a number of action plan items.

Keeping in view the significant progress made in the last year, it seems highly likely that the country will be removed from the greylist in 2021.