More efforts needed to come out of FATF grey list, says Baqir

SBP governor acknowledges progress has been made on FATF’s action plan

KARACHI: Significant progress has been made between May and September to meet the action plan set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in different areas to demonstrate the effectiveness of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) safety regime of Pakistan, said State Bank of Pakistan Governor Reza Baqir.

After inaugurating the conference on AML/Combating Financing of Terrorism (CFT) and Trade-Based Money Laundering (TBML), Baqir said, “There was a major rethink of the approach being taken by the authorities in the early to mid-2019. Consequently, a number of steps were taken to significantly strengthen our approach to make progress on these issues.”

He, however, stressed the need for putting in more effort to progress on the remaining areas to ensure that Pakistan came out of the grey list in the next meeting of the FATF.

The conference, conducted by the central bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB), was aimed at mitigating the risks of money laundering and terrorism financing.

The governor informed the audience that since the grey-listing, the SBP had arranged many AML/CFT outreach and awareness programmes for its regulated entities and stakeholders and that the conference was a useful platform to understand the AML/CFT challenges being faced globally and the best practices followed in mitigating such challenges.

The governor urged the financial sector to make efficient use of technologies for the assessment of risks, controls and ongoing monitoring of financial transactions and enhancing capacity by continued training of their employees.

Baqir emphasised that trade-based money laundering posed complex and sophisticated challenges and that SBP inspection teams conducted thematic inspections of banks with respect to export and import of specific goods.

Speaking on the occasion, ADB Country Director Xiohang Yang said, “AML/CFT is a critical issue for trade finance, which is why ADB’s trade finance programme is playing an increasing role in this space.”

She said the ADB had a strong commitment to work with Pakistan’s banking sector and the SBP on the issue.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2019.

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