EU delists Sri Lanka from its list of ‘High Risk Third Countries with Money Laundering’

Tuesday, 12 May 2020 16:08 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The European Commission has de-listed Sri Lanka from its list of ‘High Risk Third Countries with Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Strategic Deficiencies’ published on 7 May.

The Central Bank said Sri Lanka was listed as a high risk third country by the EU in February 2018, subsequent to Sri Lanka being identified by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as a jurisdiction with strategic AML/CFT deficiencies in its Compliance Document which is more commonly identified as “the Grey List” in October 2017.

It said upon listing, a time-bound Action Plan to address the strategic deficiencies identified was assigned to Sri Lanka.

Since the listing by the FATF, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) together with other stakeholders had taken a series of effective and tangible steps to implement the FATF Action Plan well within the given timeframe and accordingly, the FATF delisted Sri Lanka from its Compliance Document (a.k.a. “the Grey List”) at its Plenary held during 13-18 October 2019 in Paris.