Global Watchdog Not Satisfied With Pakistan’s Steps To Curb Terror Financing

New Delhi: Asia-Pacific Group (APG), a regional affiliate of Paris-based global watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF), has reserved Pakistan’s status on terror financing in the “enhanced follow-up” list.

According to an APG report, it was found that the country’s measures to combat money laundering and terror financing “are not yet sufficient to justify a re-rating”.

The report comes just a few weeks ahead of FATF’s scheduled meet to decide on Pakistan’s grey list status, news agency PTI reported.

APG, in its first Follow-Up Report on Mutual Evaluation of Pakistan, underscored that Pakistan’s progress on the 40 FATF recommendations on the effectiveness of anti-money laundering and combating financing terror (AML/CFT) system has predominantly remained unaltered.

The report further revealed that only two FATF recommendations were fully complied to by the country, 25 counts were partially complied to, nine guidelines were largely complied to, whereas four remained  uncomplied.

“Pakistan will remain in enhanced (expedited) follow up, and will continue to report back to the APG on progress to strengthen its implementation of AML/CFT measures,” the 12-page APG report said.

Enhanced Follow-up means an “intensive process of correction that deals with members with significant deficiencies (for technical compliance or effectiveness) in their AML/CFT systems”.