PARIS: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Friday announced that Pakistan will continue to remain in its “increased monitoring list” — referred to more commonly as the grey list.
FATF President Dr Marcus Pleyer, addressing a webinar to announce the decisions taken by the plenary in its three-day meeting period from October 21 to 23, said that the forum has decided that Pakistan “needs to do more” when it comes to fulfilling the requirements set out by the task force.
It was acknowledged that of the 27 conditions that were put forth to Pakistan, 21 have been fulfilled.
To a question, Dr Pleyer said that once the remaining six conditions are fulfilled, an “on-site visit” will be approved under which a team from the FATF will visit the country for the next review.
“Our discussions are confidential […] the members decided by consensus that Pakistan needs to complete these six items for an onsite visit to be granted.
“As soon as the plenary decides that Pakistan has completed all the 27 items, then an onsite visit will be made. After that, it will be decided whether the country will be allowed to exit the grey list or not.”
He said that the new deadline for Pakistan to fulfill the remaining conditions is February 2021 when the next plenary meeting will take place.
“As long as Pakistan can be seen progressing and fulfilling the requirements, it will be given a chance. There are some countries which are not making progress and have been placed on the black list,” said Dr Pleyer.
Meanwhile, two countries — Iceland and Mongolia — were removed from the FATF’s “black list”.
In a statement issued after the plenary session concluded, the anti-money laundering watchdog said that it had noted the significant progress that Pakistan had made on a number of action plan items.
“To date, Pakistan has made progress across all action plan items and has now largely addressed 21 of the 27 action items,” it said, adding: “As all action plan deadlines have expired, the FATF strongly urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by February 2021.”
