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Tuesday, 22 October 2019 00:12 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global policy setter on Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT), has delisted Sri Lanka from its Compliance Document, which is more commonly identified as the Grey List.
The decision was made at FATF Plenary held from 13-18 October in Paris, the Central Bank revealed in a statement yesterday.
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, took 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.
However, due to the Easter Sunday attacks on 21 April 2019, the proposed onsite visit during May 2019 was postponed. The review team visited Sri Lanka during 16-17 September 2019 to assess the progress of implementation. The review team, consisting of officials from India (Co-Chair), Australia, Bangladesh and Japan in addition to the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) Secretariat, met all relevant stakeholders, including private sector officials, to assess the effective implementation of AML/CFT measures.
Furthermore, the team met Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera to ensure that the necessary high-level political commitment remained in place to sustain the implementation of AML/CFT measures in the future.
The recommendations made by the review team on Sri Lanka’s progress were discussed at FATF Plenary in October 2019 and all members had endorsed the decision to delist Sri Lanka from the Grey List.
The delisting by FATF is expected to have a positive economic and financial impact on Sri Lanka.
The implementation of FATF action plan was led by Sri Lanka Central Bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy as the Chairman of the AML/CFT National Coordinating Committee and officials of the Financial Intelligence Unit.
The FIU said it wished to appreciate the commitment and support shown by all stakeholders in the completion of FATF action plan within the given timeframe and expected that the FIU would continue to receive the support of all stakeholders to further strengthen the effective implementation of AML/CFT measures within the country.
The full statement made by FATF on Sri Lanka is as follows:
FATF welcomes Sri Lanka’s significant progress in improving its AML/CFT regime and notes that 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 FATF identified in November 2017. Sri Lanka is therefore no longer subject to FATF’s monitoring process under its ongoing global AML/CFT compliance process. Sri Lanka will continue to work with APG to further improve its AML/CFT regime.
