FATF adds to Other Monitored Jurisdictions List
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) added Malta, Haiti, South Sudan and the Philippines to Greylist on Friday.
The jurisdictions agreed to remidial actions in order to attempt to to address issuesidentified by the FATF, including improvements to their UBO registers. Malta, The only EU member state on teh greylist thus far, Was instructed to give the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit greater powers in supporting money laundering and tax investigations and identifying related risks on behalf of law enforcement.
The Philippines has been instructed to tighten its risk-based supervision of Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs), enhance its supervisory efforts regarding casino junkets, penalize unregistered and illegal remittance operators, and amend its financial sanctions framework.
South Sudan is required to apply for membership in the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG), while both Haiti and South Sudan have been asked to draft national risk assessments outlining their potential vulnerabilities to illicit finance.
The Paris-based organization removed Ghana also, but refused once again to do the same for Pakistan.
Financial institutions in the newly grey-listed nations are likely to face rising compliance costs as a result of the designations, with a similarly negative impact on international trade in the countries.
As part of the plenary meeting concluded on Friday, FATF separately published a white paper for public consultation on its potential plans to call for additional oversight of foreign and domestic legal entities and steps to improve national UBO registers.
During the plenary, FATF member-states approved the following publication schedule for upcoming reports and guidance papers:
- 28 June: Report on Money Laundering from Environmental Crime
- 29 June: Guidance on Proliferation Financing Risk Assessment and Mitigation
- 30 June: Report on Ethnically or Racially Motivated Terrorism Financing
- 1 July: Report on Opportunities and Challenges of New Technologies for AML/CFT
- 1 July: Stocktake on Data Pooling, Collaborative Analytics and Data Protection
- 5 July: Virtual Assets: Adoption of Second 12-Month Review of Implementation
