FATF session begins from today, to review Pakistan's efforts on action plan
Oct 19, 2021
Islamabad [Pakistan], October 19 : The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting in Paris started a hybrid meeting on Tuesday to discuss boosting global action against terrorism financing and crimes.
The FATF is set to discuss the outcomes of the FATF's survey to identify areas where divergent anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing rules or their implementation cause friction for cross-border payments.
Pakistan will present a review of its performance on the matter of terror financing and other issues, Ary News reported citing sources. "A decision with regard to change in the status of Pakistan will likely be decided by April 2022," sources said.
According to the report by Ary News, the task force session will also review the ground realities of Pakistan and the implementation of legislation. "Any decision with regard to removal/non-removal of Pakistan from the grey list will be taken after it," sources said.
In the previous session in June this year, Pakistan was retained on the FATF 'grey list' for failing to effectively implement the global FATF standards and over its lack of progress on investigation and prosecution of senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terror groups.
FATF President Dr Marcus Pleyer had said Pakistan will remain on the grey list till it addresses all items on the original action plan agreed to in June 2018 as well as all items on a parallel action plan handed out by the watchdog's regional partner - the Asia Pacific Group (APG) - in 2019.
Pleyer had noted that "Pakistan has made significant progress and it has largely addressed 26 out of 27 items on the action plan it first committed to in June 2018."
He, however, added that the item on financial terrorism" still needed to be addressed which concerned the "investigation and prosecution of senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terror groups".
