The country will be forced to apply anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing standards

Wednesday 28 August 2019 - Global Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) regional sub-group APG (Asia-Pacific Group) has blacklisted Pakistan for non-compliance of anti-money laundering and combating terror financing efforts.

The decision was taken in a review meeting in Canberra, Australia, on August 22-23. The Pakistani delegation was led by Dr Reza Baqir, the Governor State Bank of Pakistan.

Pakistan leader Imran Khan

Despite Pakistan’s contentions on improving its grading on nearly 50 parameters, Pakistan failed to garner support from the 41-member plenary. The body placed Pakistan on ‘Enhanced Expedited Follow-Up List’ (blacklist) for failing to meet the requirements.

Of total 40 parameters set by the regional grouping, Pakistan failed on around 36, while it passed on only one of the total 11 ‘effectiveness’ parameters.

Pakistan had submitted its compliance report comprising its 27-point action plan to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The report could not pass the scrutiny of the APG, which found Islamabad lacking on several fronts.

The current blacklisting of Pakistan would make its case much more difficult during FAFT review in October. Pakistan has to show compliance on the FATF action plan in the next plenary session, which will do the final review in October…

The Financial Action Task Force is an inter-governmental body, which was established in 1989.

Its task is to ensure effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

A policy-making body, FATF works to generate the necessary political will to bring about national legislative and regulatory reforms in these areas.

Editor's comment - This comes not a moment too soon, and every country (including the UK) that gives aid to Pakistan should cut off this jihad-enabling state immediately.