FATF review of India postponed again to 2022
New Delhi: An evaluation by global organisation Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to analyse the effectiveness of India's anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing regime has been postponed for the second time in view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and is now slated to be initiated next year, officials said.
The scheduled assessment for the country by the Paris-headquartered watchdog was originally slated for September-October, 2020.
However, these dates were postponed and pushed to February this year by the FATF secretariat in view of the coronavirus outbreak that gripped the world, including India.
"The schedule for FATF mutual evaluation has again been postponed from February, 2021 and it is tentatively expected to begin in September, 2022 now," a senior government officer said.
As per this re-scheduled assessment calendar, the technical evaluation of Indian anti-money laundering, countering terrorist financing and the role of relevant legal framework and agencies enforcing these measures would begin in September next year followed by an on-site visit of FATF experts to the country in February, 2023, another official privy to the development said.
The FATF plenary that is expected to be held in October, 2023 will discuss the Indian assessment and its mutual evaluation report will be published for public consumption after 10 months from the date of the on-site visit (February 2023), he said.
The FATF is a global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog that sets international standards to prevent economic and financial crimes in a country with inter-connected linkages across the world. It conducts "peer reviews of each member on an ongoing basis to assess levels of implementation of the FATF recommendations and provides an in-depth description and analysis of each country's system for preventing criminal abuse of the financial system."
The last such review of India's anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regime was held in June, 2010 and it is usually taken up again after a period of 10 years.
The FATF, post this review, had said in 2013 that "India had made significant progress in addressing deficiencies identified in its mutual evaluation report and (the FATF) decided that the country should be removed from the regular follow-up process."
In 2019, India had set up a joint working group comprising 22 central investigation, intelligence gathering and regulatory agencies to make presentations, hold discussions and brief the FATF experts, drawn from various countries, once the process starts.
Some of the prominent agencies in this grouping supervised by the Department of Revenue under the Union Finance Ministry include the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax Department, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), CBI, Customs Department, market regulator SEBI, banking regulator RBI and insurance regulator IRDAI.
The FATF too made a public declaration saying the dates for mutual evaluation of certain countries including India "will be rescheduled as soon as practicable."
