KARACHI: Pakistan is unlikely to be placed on the blacklist of the globalfinancial watchdog as the country has made enough progress to meetinternational anti-money laundering and terror financing standards, abrokerage said on Monday.link#_>
“Since a comprehensive action plan has already been submitted, we believethat chances of Pakistan to be placed on the blacklist in the ongoing FATF(Financial Action Taskforce) meeting is least likely, contrary to themarket expectations, as only countries that do not make sufficient progressor fail to provide an action plan are moved to the blacklist,” ToplineSecurities said in a flash note.
“We also downplay concerns of an adverse impact on Pakistan’s economy dueto its inclusion in the blacklist in case Pakistan fails to satisfy FATF.”
A Pakistani delegation is currently on a visit to Paris to attend FATFmeeting that started on June 24 (Sunday).
“The week’s meetings will conclude with the third and final plenary meetingon 27-29 June, where they will officially place Pakistan on the ImprovingGlobal Anti-money Laundering (AML)/Countering Financing of Terrorism (CFT)compliance’s list, also known as the grey list,” Topline Securities said.This list comprises of jurisdictions with strategic AML/CFT deficienciesfor which they have developed an action plan with the FATF.
In February, FATF decided to place the country on the grey list from June.The country was previously part of high risk jurisdictions (blacklist) in2008 and 2012, while it was under jurisdictions that were making sufficientprogress (grey list) in 2010 and 2014. Pakistan was removed from the greylist in 2015.
Though FATF did not officially announce Pakistan’s placement on the greylist, the US and the UK jointly moved the FATF in February, nominatingPakistan for placement on the grey list and were subsequently joined byFrance and Germany. Later, Pakistan was asked to submit a comprehensiveaction plan to be reviewed in the ongoing FATF meeting for countering thefinancing of terrorism deficiencies.
Pakistan has made a lot of efforts to counter financing terrorism andpreparing anti-money laundering laws and recently addressed issues raisedby the FATF on the tax amnesty scheme.