Action against banned outfits key to exiting FATF list: US

The US has asked Pakistan to show tangible and satisfactory actions against banned organisations and their leaderships to pacify more countries towards supporting its case to move out of the grey list of Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

A US delegation was in Islamabad to have an independent assessment of steps, actions and measures identified during the Florida meetings of the FATF in June this year and the progress made by Pakistan since then, reports Dawn News.

The delegation comprising Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Ambassador Alice G. Wells, US Treasury officials Scott Rembrandt, Grant Vickers, David Galbraith and others also met Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on Tuesday.

"The adviser briefed the visiting delegation on the measures pertaining to economic reforms being undertaken by the Government of Pakistan to ensure economic discipline, efforts being made towards implementation of FATF Action Plan and the key challenges being faced," said an official statement.

An official, who has been part of Pakistan's team interacting with the FATF and Asia Pacific Group (APG) over the past year, said Islamabad had taken significant steps since the FATF meetings in June, reports Dawn News.

The US delegation had rather strong position on taking actions against banned outfits, their activities and movements of their leaderships and key operatives and wanted some visible progress by the authorities to address adverse opinions from majority of FATF members, the official said.

The assessment  to be made by Ambassador Wells-led team would be shared with the APG simultaneously with a report to be prepared by Pakistan for discussions in September and then become the basis of FATF meeting due from October 13 to 18 in Paris to decide Islamabad's compliance with requirements of the global financial watchdog relating to anti-money laundering (AML) and to counter terror financing (CFT) reports Dawn News.