FATF's affiliate retains Pak on 'enhanced follow-up' for outstanding requirements

Islamabad: The Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering has retained Pakistan on "enhanced follow-up" status for outstanding requirements, and Islamabad will continue to report back to it on the country's progress to strengthen its implementation of anti-money laundering and combating financing terror measures, according to a media report on Saturday.

Pakistan was put on the grey list by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in June 2018 and the country has been struggling to come out of it. The Asia Pacific Group (APG) is a regional affiliate of the FATF.

The second Follow-Up Report (FUR) on Mutual Evaluation of Pakistan released by the APG also downgraded the country on one criteria.

The report said Pakistan was re-rated to compliant' status on five counts and on 15 others to largely compliant' and on yet another count to partially compliant'.

Dawn newspaper reported that overall, Pakistan is now fully compliant' with seven recommendations and largely compliant' with 24 others. The country is partially compliant' with seven recommendations and non-compliant' with two out of a total 40 recommendations.

All in all, Pakistan is now compliant or largely compliant with 31 out of 40 FATF recommendations.

The reporting date for this evaluation was October 1, 2020, which means Islamabad may have made further progress since then that would be evaluated at a later stage.

Pakistan will move from enhanced (expedited) to enhanced follow-up, and will continue to report back to the APG on progress to strengthen its implementation of anti-money laundering and combating financing terror (AML/CFT) measures, the APG said.