Pakistan could be blacklisted by FATF due to ‘lobbying by India’, says Qureshi

Pakistan could be blacklisted by FATF due to ‘lobbying by India’, says Qureshi

1. Pakistan foreign minister has said that Pakistan could be blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) due to lobbying by India. He estimated that Pakistan could suffer $10 billion loss annually if it remains on the FATF grey list.
2. In June 2018, the Paris-based FATF had placed Pakistan on the grey list of countries. Pakistan was put on the grey list after its domestic laws were considered weak to tackle the challenges of money laundering and terrorism financing. The FATF has asked Pakistan to reassess the operation of banned terrorist outfits in the country.
3. Recently, a group of experts from the FATF visited Pakistan to review whether Pakistan has made enough progress on global standards against financial crimes to warrant its exclusion from the watchdog’s grey list.
4. The FATF noted that Pakistan had revised its terror financing risk assessment but expressed serious reservations over insufficient physical actions on ground against banned groups to block the flow of funds and activities.
5. FATF has said that Pakistan has time until October 2019 to either comply with the demands made by FATF members or it could be blacklisted. The blacklisting will prevent institutions like IMF from financially supporting Pakistan, which is anticipating a financial crisis.
6. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 on the initiative of the G7. It is a “policy-making body” which works to generate the necessary political will to bring about national legislative and regulatory reforms in various areas. The FATF Secretariat is housed at the OECD headquarters in Paris.
7. The objectives of the FATF are to (a) set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures (b) for combating money laundering (c)terrorist financing and (d) other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.