Pakistan stays on FATF grey list

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Friday announced that Pakistan will continue to remain in its grey list.

The global money laundering and terror financing watchdog 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.

Pak has achieved impressive progress on its FATF action plan.
21 out of 27 action items now stand cleared. Remaining 6 rated as partially complete.
Within a year, we progressed from 5/27 to 21/27 completed items.
FATF acknowledged that any blacklisting is off the table now. 1/2

— Hammad Azhar (@Hammad_Azhar) October 23, 2020

To a question, FATF President Dr Marcus Player 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, and 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 fulfil the remaining conditions is February 2021.

In February 2020, the FATF plenary granted Pakistan a grace period of four months to complete its 27-point action plan against money-laundering and terror financing (ML&TF) after it noted that the country was compliant on 14 points.

Pakistan was placed on the grey list in June 2018.