Pakistan hasn't demonstrated proper understanding of terror financing: FATF

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has come hard on Pakistan saying it has not demonstrated a proper understanding of the terror financing risks posed by "Da’esh, AQ, JuD, FiF, LeT, JeM, HQN, and persons affiliated with the Taliban. "

The FATF asked Pakistan should continue to work on implementing its action plan to address its strategic deficiencies and said, "Given the limited progress on action plan items due in January 2019, the FATF urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its action plan, particularly those with timelines of May 2019."

Pakistan was put on the greylist last year which meant the country came under financial jurisdiction with “structural deficiencies” in anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) or simply - supports financing of terror.

Even as Financial Action Task Force (FATF) came hard on Pakistan on for not doing enough on terror financing, the president of the anti-terror financing group Marshall Billingslea has said that the multilateral group will hold Islamabad accountable if the country does not fulfil its commitments. 

Replying to WION's question that is Pakistan serious on acting on terror, in briefing post the week-long FATF plenary, Billingslea said, "I have engaged in my capacity as the president of FATF...I believe when they issue high-level commitment that they well understood what they were committing too and again as I have said we will hold them to it and we expect time table to be met and action plan to be fully implemented in line with FATF standards"

A high-level delegation from the government of Pakistan attended the FATF plenary.

In June 2018, Pakistan had made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and Asia Pacific group to strengthen its AML/CFT regime and to address its strategic counter- terrorist financing-related deficiencies.

FATF said, "Pakistan has taken steps towards improving its AML/CFT regime, including by operationalising the integrated database for its currency declaration regime."

FATF has listed ten points including "demonstrating effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions against all 1267 and 1373 designated terrorists" for Pakistan to act on. 

The development comes shot in the arm for New Delhi which has been focusing in global isolation of Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack which was claimed by Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammad(JeM).