Sri Lanka removed from Financial Action Task Force ‘grey list’ following positive action
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka has announced that the country has been taken off the ‘grey list’ of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which is a global anti-money laundering body.
The FATF grouping monitors Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) procedures of member countries.
“….Sri Lanka has strengthened the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime and addressed related technical deficiencies to meet the commitments in its action plan regarding the strategic deficiencies that the FATF identified in November 2017,” the Central Bank of Sri Lanka has quoted the FATF as saying.
“Sri Lanka is therefore no longer subject to the FATF’s monitoring process under its ongoing global AML/CFT compliance process.”
Shortly after Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy was appointed to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, he has led an action plan to clear the shortcomings identified.
In October 2016, FATF announced that Sri Lanka would be subject to a review of the International Co-operation Review Group (ICRG) of FATF to assess the progress of AML/CFT effectiveness in the country.
After several discussions and progress reports, FATF indicated that Sri Lanka had not made sufficient progress in four areas, namely International Co-operation, Supervision, Legal Persons and Arrangements and Targeted Financial Sanctions on Proliferations (North Korea and Iran).
As a result, FATF at its Plenary held in October 2017, listed Sri Lanka as a jurisdiction with strategic AML/CFT deficiencies in FATF’s Compliance Document and provided a time-bound action plan for implementation.
Since the listing, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), together with other stakeholders, had taken a series of effective and tangible steps to implement FATF action plan well within the given timeframe.
At the Plenary held in February 2019, FATF made the initial determination that Sri Lanka had completed its action plan and warranted an on-site assessment to verify that the implementation of Sri Lanka’s AML/CFT reforms had begun and was being sustained, with the necessary political commitment in place to sustain implementation in the future.
OSL take:
The removal of Sri Lanka from FATF’s ‘grey list’ is indicative of the strong economic policies adopted by the country. The strong economic policies along with good fiscal management makes Sri Lanka a safe business/investment destination in the South Asian region.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/24102019/Z_7 |