Pakistan submits compliance report to FATF

Pakistan has submitted its compliance report comprising answers to 22 questions to the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), officials said on Friday.

The report detailed actions taken by Pakistan against United Nations-terrorists groups as well as sentences handed to them by the courts, reported Geo News.

The report is prepared by the representatives of the ministries of foreign affairs, interior, and finance, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), Financial Monitoring Unit, State Bank of Pakistan, National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA), Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and the Pakistan Army.

In the report, Pakistan has claimed that it has provided alternative employment to those associated with UN-designated terror groups and has taken over the control of over 113 madrassas.

Economic Affairs Minister Hammad Azhar had said Pakistan submitted its compliance report to the FATF to show its efforts to change anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws

.Azhar, who is also a team leader of the country on FATF, had said, "There will be a response from them and then (there will be) a face-to-face meeting."

Islamabad is hoping that the watchdog extends the current deadline of complying to FATF`s 27 action plans from February to June 2020 in its upcoming plenary review meeting as the current deadline is too short.

The FATF had already granted an extension till February 2020 in a meeting in October this year.

The task force kept the country on its grey list for an extended period up to February 2020 and warned that Islamabad would be put on the blacklist if it did not comply with the remaining 22 out of 27 points related to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing.

The first formal response from the FATF is awaited till this month-end.