Significant progress on made FATF items: SBP governor.

Karachi -- Inaugurating the conference on Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/ Combating Financing of Terrorism (CFT) and Trade-Based Money Laundering (TBML) here on Monday, Dr. Reza Baqir, Governor State Bank, stated that significant progress had been made between May and September 2019 on meeting the action plan items set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in different areas to demonstrate effectiveness of AML safety regime of Pakistan.

'There was a major rethink of the approach being taken by the authorities in early to mid 2019. Consequently, a number of steps were taken to significantly strengthen our approach to making progress on these issues,' the governor said. He however, stressed the need for putting in more efforts to make progress on remaining areas to ensure that Pakistan was out of grey list in the next meeting of FATF.

He was speaking at the conference organized by SBP and Asian Development Bank here at SBP.

Speaking at the conference, the governor informed the audience that since the grey-listing, State Bank had arranged many AML/CFT outreach and awareness programmes for its regulated entities and stakeholders and that the conference was a useful platform to understand the AML/CFT challenges being faced globally and the best practices followed in mitigating such challenges.

In the context of implementing AML/CFT requirements, the governor urged the financial sector to make efficient use of technologies for assessment of risks, controls and ongoing monitoring of financial transactions and enhance capacity by continuous training of their employees.

Dr. Baqir emphasised that trade-based money laundering poses complex and sophisticated challenges and that SBP inspection teams conducted thematic inspections of banks with respect to export and import of specific goods.

He also referred to State Bank's framework for managing risks of trade based money laundering and terrorist financing which has been issued to encourage authorized dealers (banks) to effectively manage the trade based money laundering and terrorist financing risks.

Ms. Xiohang Yang, ADB country director, and Mohsin Ali Nathani, President and CEO Habib Metro Bank, also spoke on the occasion.

Ms. Yang stated that 'AML/CFT is a critical issue for trade finance, which is why ADB's Trade Finance Program...