It is very disappointing to know that even after an year of consistent efforts by the government it was not able to lower the rate of money laundering and the risk assessment done by the Asia Pacific Group has led to some disappointing findings for Pakistan. poor performance of Pakistan FATA.
The report shows that FATF’s 40 suggestions to curb money laundering has not been entirely successful and through legal or illegal means, terror financing and money laundering is present at an alarming level.
The date for Pakistan to show improvement within the sector was October 18 and by the looks of it Pakistan is not even close, even after an year of efforts.
The risk assessment has concluded that the possibility and risk of terror financing and money laundering is considered medium and that is still too high for a country that wants complete riddance off of it. The report mentions the measures taken by Pakistan as not enough and that the organizations responsible for these issues donot have a complete understanding of the issues
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Pakistan should adequately identify, assess and understand its money laundering/terror financing risks including transnational risks and risks associated with terrorist groups operating in Pakistan such as Da’esh, AQ, JuD, FiF, LeT, JeM and HQN, and this should be used to implement a comprehensive and coordinated risk-based approach to combating money laundering and terror financing. For terrorism financing, Pakistani authorities have a mixed understanding of risk. Federal Investigation Agency has a low level of terror financing risk understanding, while provincial police, counter-terrorism departments (CTDs) have a better understanding of those risks within their provinces.The State Bank of Pakistan does not have a clear understanding of the money laundering and terror financing risks unique to the sectors it supervises. All non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) have a limited understanding of these risks and are in the initial stages of implementing a risk-based approach. DNFBPs have a poor understanding of money laundering and terror financing risks and are yet to start implementing a risk-based approach,Regarding statistics, the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) is legally required to maintain statistics. However, not all statistics are comprehensive or detailed, and in many instances, AML- and CFT–related statistics across a broad range of supervision, law enforcement and regulatory areas are contradictory or inconsistent
This report has summed up a lot of problems that need to be remedied as soon as possible and it is the basic necessity for Pakistan to tackle these issues in order to be an example for accountability and strictness and implementation of laws.
