Sri Lanka removed from FATF’s Grey List after nation shows significant progress in countering terrorism

Colombo: Sri Lanka has been removed from the “Grey List” of the international terror financing watchdog FATF, according to a media report. [caption id=“attachment_5220271” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena. AFP[/caption] The island nation will no longer be subject to the Financial Action Task Force’s monitoring under its on-going global anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) compliance process, the Colombo Gazette reported on Saturday. The FATF said Sri Lanka made significant progress in addressing the strategic AML/CFT deficiencies identified earlier, the daily said. In October 2016, the FATF announced that Sri Lanka will be subjected to a review of the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) of the terror financing watchdog to assess the progress of AML/CFT effectiveness in the country. The Paris based organisation indicated Sri Lanka had not made sufficient progress in four parameters - international cooperation, supervision, legal persons and arrangements and targeted financial sanctions on proliferations (North Korea and Iran), the daily said. At its meeting at Buenos Aires, Argentina in October 2017, the FATF listed Sri Lanka as a jurisdiction with strategic AML/CFT deficiencies which is more commonly identified as “Grey List” and provided a time-bound action plan, the report said. The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system. On Friday, the FATF warned Pakistan of getting blacklisted, if it does not control terror funding by February next year. According to an official statement, the FATF noted Pakistan addressed only five out of the 27 tasks given to it for controlling funding to terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen, responsible for a series of attacks in India.