FATF agrees to exclude BD from grey list

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Doulot Akter Mala The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), in principle, agreed to exclude Bangladesh from the 'grey list' after it found the country had met the entire gamut of compliances on checking money laundering and terrorist financing. In a recent plenary meeting, the body has acknowledged Bangladesh as fully compliant with the related mechanisms. The FATF has agreed to conduct an on-site visit to Bangladesh to verify the claim of the country on fulfilling its conditions regarding anti-money laundering and terrorist financing. FATF is the global standard setting body for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT). A Bangladesh team, comprising senior officials of the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) and the Ministry of Finance, made the proposal at a meeting in Paris held on October 16-18 last. A senior Bangladesh Bank (BB) official, who attended the meeting, said the Asia Pacific Group under FATF has agreed to conduct an on-site visit next month (November) to review the status of Bangladesh. The Asia Pacific Regional Review group (APRRG) will monitor implementation of AML/CFT reforms and its sustainability, he said. The BB official added that when FATF gets convinced of significant progress in any country for its being eligible to come out of the grey list, it gives consent to conducting on-site visit to that country. "We hope the FATF will exclude Bangladesh from the grey list in its next plenary meeting in February next," he said. A total of three countries in the Asia Pacific region -- Bangladesh, Vietnam and Nepal -- applied for exclusion from the grey list. With this, the countries will be able to get excluded from the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG). "Since October 2010, when Bangladesh made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and APG to address its strategic deficiencies, Bangladesh has made significant progress in improving its AML/CFT regime," said a document of FATF regarding the outcome of the meeting. Bangladesh has largely addressed its action plan including adequately criminalising money laundering and terrorist financing, establishing and implementing adequate procedures to identify and freeze terrorist assets, implementing adequate procedures for confiscation of funds related to money laundering, ensuring a fully operational and effectively functioning financial intelligence unit, improving suspicious transaction reporting requirements, and improving international cooperation, the FATF said in its paper. "The FATF will conduct an on-site visit to confirm that the process of implementation of the required reforms and actions is underway to address deficiencies previously identified by the FATF," it said. Currently, a total of 12 countries in the Asia Pacific region are in the grey list of the FATF which are under the ICRG process. The FATF holds plenary meeting thrice in a year to evaluate implementation status of its recommendations on anti-money laundering and terrorist financing measures. In order to protect the international financial system from money laundering and financing of terrorism risks and to encourage greater compliances with the AML/CFT standards, the FATF identified some countries that have strategic deficiencies. It works with them to address those deficiencies that pose a risk to the international financial system. In 2008, FATF made 16 core recommendations to comply with to get excluded from its grey list. The government has complied with all of the recommendations through passing related laws and rules regarding money laundering and terror financing. The Bangladesh delegation placed a status paper to the plenary meeting in Paris citing the achievements. At the meeting, the FATF expressed its concern over failure of Iran and North Korea to comply with the recommendations to address risks of terrorist financing and money laundering. It also observed poor progresses in Algeria, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Syria, Tanzania, Turkey and Yemen in addressing the deficiencies.