Bangladesh is likely to find its global image ‘clean’ soon in combating
money laundering and terrorist financing as the policymakers are upbeat
of being delisted from the current ‘grey list’ of Financial Action Task
Force (FATF).
The FATF, an inter-governmental body to combat money laundering, listed
Bangladesh under the category of ‘grey’ in 2008 for its significant
deficiencies in Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism
(AML/CFT).
The FATF in its latest statement after its October plenary meeting in
Paris lauded Bangladesh for adequately implementing measures in
combating AML/CFT.
An Onsite Supervision mission of FATF will visit the country on November
24-25 to confirm that the process of implementing the required reforms
and actions is underway to address deficiencies previously identified by
the FATF.
The formal decision of delisting is expected to be announced in next February, a Deputy Governor of Bangladesh Bank (BB) said.
‘It is now a matter of time as the FATF in its next plenary meeting in
February 2014 is expected to delist Bangladesh from the grey list as we
adequately implemented a raft of policy measures to combat money
laundering and terrorist financing,’ the Deputy Governor of BB told New
Age on Monday.
He said the statement released by the FATF recently demonstrates that
Bangladesh is now a compliant country in terms of addressing money
laundering, which has brightened the image of the country in
international forum.
The statement of the FATF said since October 2010, when Bangladesh made a
high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and APG (Asia
Pacific Group) to address its strategic AML/CFT deficiencies, Bangladesh
has made significant progress to improve its AML/CFT regime.
‘Bangladesh has largely addressed its action plan, by adequately
criminalising money laundering and terrorist financing; establishing and
implementing adequate procedures to identify and freeze terrorist
assets; implementing adequate procedures for the confiscation of funds
related to money laundering; ensuring a fully operational and
effectively functioning Financial Intelligence Unit; improving
suspicious transaction reporting requirements; and improving
international cooperation,’ reads the statement.
The FATF will conduct an on-site visit to confirm that the process of
implementing the required reforms and actions is underway to address
deficiencies previously identified by the FATF, the statement added.
The FATF is an inter-governmental body, the purpose of which is to
develop and promote policies, both at national and international levels,
to combat money laundering and terror financing.
The task force is a ‘policy-making body’ of the FATF. It works to help
foster the necessary political will to bring about national legislative
and regulatory reforms, a central banker said.
He said a team of FATF would visit Bangladesh soon to conduct an onsite
visit to assess the country’s preparedness for addressing the problems
of money laundering and terrorist financing and to examine the
implementation status of the action plan.
The government submitted the Action Plan to the FATF in October 2010. (source)