Pakistan briefs FATF on action taken against money laundering

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani authorities on Tuesday briefed the delegation of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on laws against money laundering and its regulations in Islamabad, ARY News reported.

The meeting between Pakistan officials and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) team entered the second day in Islamabad. The FATF delegation is currently in Pakistan to evaluate the measures taken to curb terror financing and money laundering in the country.

The visiting delegation also presented its report on the state of money laundering and terror financing in the country at its review meeting.  According to sources in the Finance Ministry, Pakistan put up a stringent defence on FATF’s Asia Pacific report.

Read: FATF acknowledges Pakistan’s anti-money laundering steps, urges further quick steps

Sources told that Pakistan would soon share the record of transactions of unprofitable entities with the FATF. The visiting team was also informed about loans taken by Pakistan from monetary institutions.

The Pakistani officials also briefed the FATF team on actions against fake bank accounts and distrustful transactions through illegal channels. Pakistan assured the FATF delegation of halting registration of suspicious firms to curb money laundering practices.

The FATF had placed Pakistan on a money laundering “grey list” early in 2018 but given it time to take action against further downgrade.

“Since June 2018, when Pakistan made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF to strengthen its anti money laundering/combating financing of terrorism regime and to address its strategic counter-terrorist financing-related deficiencies, Pakistan has taken steps towards improving the regime, including by operationalising the integrated database for its currency declaration regime,” the body said in a statement.

In order to qualify for a de-listing, the FATF has urged that, Pakistan should continue to work on implementing its action plan to address its strategic deficiencies.

Pakistan has taken substantial steps to curb money laundering and terrorism financing. The Pakistani agencies traced around 8500 suspicious transactions and imposed ban on the militant groups involved in extremist activities.