Pakistan evades FATF blacklisting; deadline gets extended till February 2020

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Flipboard
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan

Islamabad : Pakistan managed to make an escape from featuring on the blacklist by global terror watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for failing to stop terror financing.

FATF issued a fresh deadline of February 2020 to complete the given objectives or risk being blacklisted by the body.

"We strongly urge Pakistan to complete its full action play February 2020, failing which the FATF will take action including urging our members to advise their financial institutions to give special attention to business relations/transactions with Pakistan," said FATF in a statement.

Islamabad had slipped to the Grey List by FATF in June 2018 and was assigned a 27-point action plan to complete by October, failing which, it was warned, it would face severe actions. However, as it turned out on Friday, Islamabad escaped being blacklisted for now.

Any country can avoid getting on the blacklist if it manages a support of three members, which Pakistan got from its 'all-weather aide' China, another close aide Turkey and Malaysia, which recently backed Islamabad’s stand on Jammu and Kashmir at the UN General Assembly session in September.

What happens if a country is blacklisted?

If a country is featured on the blacklist by FATF then it will invite immediate economic sanctions, punishment-borrowing will become difficult, non-financial banking institutions will come under financial scrutiny and bailouts and packages by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will become harder to access.

Formed in 1989, the FATF is a global anti-money laundering body which also focuses on money laundering as a means of financing terror activities across the world. Headquartered in the French capital Paris, it puts countries in three categories or lists: White, Black and Grey.