FATF to decide on Pakistan's greylist status in October on action against terror financing

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will decide on Pakistan's grey list status in a virtual meeting scheduled later this month, reports said on Monday. The international body had placed Pakistan on the grey list in June 2018 and asked the country to devise a plan of action to curb money laundering and terror financing by the end of 2019. However, the deadline was extended to October due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Seeking to avoid a demotion from the FATF greylist to the blacklist in the upcoming plenary meeting, debt-ridden Pakistan in August imposed financial sanctions on 88 banned terror groups and their leaders, including 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

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The virtual FATF plenary scheduled for October 21-23 will decide if Pakistan should be excluded from its grey list, based on its performance to meet global commitments and standards on the fight against money laundering and terror financing (ML&TF).

In its third plenary held virtually in June, the FATF had decided to keep Pakistan in the grey list as it failed to curb the flow of money to terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and JeM. As Pakistan continues to remain in the 'grey list', it is becoming increasingly difficult for the nation to get financial support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the European Union, in its dire financial situation.

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Pakistan attempts to wriggle out of the greylist

Trying hard to comply with the tough conditions set by the FATF, Pakistan's Senate unanimously approved two bills in July and four other bills in August as part of the efforts to move from the greylist to the white list.

In September, Islamabad’s joint session of the Parliament amended at least 15 laws to match its legal system to the international standards as required by the FATF. The government has already submitted its report to the FATF review groups and has detailed its compliance with the 13 remaining action points.

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In the upcoming plenary meeting, the FATF will examine if the country had implemented the actions and sanctions over terror financing. If the global body finds that Pakistan has failed to meet its requirements, Islamabad may be placed in the 'Black List' along with North Korea and Iran. In August, Prime Minister Imran Khan had warned that if Pakistan is blacklisted at the FATF, its entire economy will shatter due to inflation with a massive plunge in Pakistani Rupee.

About FATF

The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to battle out money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system. The FATF currently has 39 members including two regional organisations the European Commission and Gulf Cooperation Council. India is a member of the FATF consultations and its Asia Pacific Group.

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