International team to examine Pakistan's efforts against terror financing

Islamabad, Oct 8  A team of international experts has arrived in Pakistan to examine the country's efforts to block terror financing through money laundering and illegal remittances, a media report said on Monday.

The team of the Asia Pacific Group (APG), an arm of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), arrived here on Sunday night to begin a 12-day "on-site inspection" of the country, Dawn news said in its report. 

The team will review systems, networks and mechanisms of various institutions and agencies to ascertain if Pakistan was following through on its global commitment to get out of the FATF grey list.

The on-site inspection will verify actions taken and progress made by Islamabad.

The APG delegation comprises experts from Britain's Scotland Yard, US Department of Treasury, Financial Intelligence Unit of Maldives, Indonesian Ministry of Finance, Peoples' Bank of China, and the Justice Department of Turkey.

The FATF decided in February to place Pakistan on its grey list in June on a campaign pushed through by the US and its European allies for allegedly not doing enough to ban UN- and Washington-designated religious organisations and rein in their activities.

The ministries of interior, finance, foreign affairs and law besides the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), National Counter-Terrorism Authority (Nacta), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU), Central Directorate of National Savings and provincial counter-terrorism departments would remain available for briefings and explanations.

Last week, the government announced that it had finalised amendments to relevant laws that would be presented to the Prime Minister and his cabinet for approval, Dawn reported.

The former government negotiated a 10-point action plan to meet about 40 standards of the FATF by September 2019 to get out of the grey list.