Pakistan likely to remain in FATF grey list: diplomatic sources

ISLAMABAD: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has commenced its plenary meeting from October 21 to take up a case related to exit of Pakistan from its grey list, ARY News reported on Wednesday.

Diplomatic sources told ARY News that Pakistan is likely to remain in FATF grey list, however, there is no expectation from FATF to push the country in its blacklist. It emerged that Pakistan could not come off FATF grey list during the ongoing plenary meeting commenced from October 21 (today).

Sources added that FATF virtual meeting will be concluded on October 23. The diplomatic sources expressed chances regarding Pakistan to come off FATF grey list in the next plenary meeting in June next year, whereas, the country is also expected to get insight visit in February.

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During the insight visit, the experts will review the progress on implementation of action points during their visit to Pakistan.

Sources said that Pakistan has complied 21 out of 27 FATF action points with six still remaining to be implemented. Islamabad completed the implementation of most of the FATF action points related to Financial Action Task Force and it was also admitted in a report compiled by International Co-operation Review Group (ICRG).

The country has complied 14 action points till February this year as legislations to meet FATF requirement were made 16 times, sources said.

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Earlier in October, the Asia-Pacific Group (APG), a regional affiliate of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on money laundering and terror financing, had decided to keep Pakistan on its “Enhanced Follow-Up” list. The APG retained the country on the Enhanced Follow-UP list on recommendations of the Paris-based FATF.

It released a 14-page Follow-Up Report (FUR) on Mutual Evaluation of Pakistan showing the country fully complied with two of the 40 FATF recommendations to effectively implement anti-money laundering and combating financing terror (AML/CFT) measures. The country had earlier remained partially complaint on 24 recommendations and largely complaint on nine ones.