Pakistan gets time before further downgrade from FATF grey to black list

The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — which had placed Pakistan on a money laundering “grey list” early in 2018, but given it time to take action before a further downgrade — on Friday issued its appraisal of Pakistan’s progress with regards to combating money laundering and terrorism financing and urged it to move quickly to meet a May 2019 deadline if it wishes to be de-listed.

“Since June 2018, when Pakistan made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and APG to strengthen its AML/CFT [anti money laundering/combating financing of terrorism] regime and to address its strategic counter-terrorist financing-related deficiencies, Pakistan has taken steps towards improving its AML/CFT regime, including by operationalising the integrated database for its currency declaration regime,” the FATF acknowledged in the statement.
The statement, however, was critical with respect to the work that remains to be done.
“Pakistan has revised its TF [terrorism financing] risk assessment; however, it does not demonstrate a proper understanding of the TF risks posed by Da’esh, Al Qaeda, Jamaatud Dawa, Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, the Haqqani Network, and persons affiliated with the Taliban,” it said.
In order to qualify for a de-listing, the FATF has recommended that, “Pakistan should continue to work on implementing its action plan to address its strategic deficiencies.