Pakistan out of FATF's grey list

Islamabad, Oct 21: Pakistan is "no longer subject to FATF's increased monitoring process, said the Financial Action Task Force of FATF on Friday. The development comes more than four years after the FATF put Pakistan on grey list for its failure to check the risk of money laundering, leading to corruption and terror financing.

"2nd country coming off FATF's list is Pakistan. After a lot of work by Pak authorities, they have worked through 2 separate action plans and completed a combined 34 action items. Going forward it will need to work with Asia/Pacific Group to continue strengthen its systems," said FATF president T Raja Kumar.

"The FATF welcomes Pakistan's significant progress in improving its AML/CFT (anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing) regime. Pakistan has strengthened the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime and addressed technical deficiencies to meet the commitments of its action plans regarding strategic deficiencies that the FATF identified in June 2018 and June 2021, the latter of which was completed in advance of the deadlines, encompassing 34 action items in total," the global watchdog on terror financing and money laundering, said on Friday.

"Pakistan is therefore no longer subject to the FATF's increased monitoring process. Pakistan will continue to work with APG (The Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering) to further improve its AML/CFT system," it added.

Pakistan has been on the grey list of Paris-based global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog for deficiencies in its counter-terror financing and anti-money laundering regimes since June 2018. This greylisting has adversely impacted its imports, exports, remittances, international trade and financial system.