Bangladesh ‘totally risk-free’ of being 'blacklisted by FATF' as a terror-financing country

Bangladesh's actions against money laundering and terrorism financing have been recognised as of 'international standards' in an evaluation by the Asia/Pacific Group On Money Laundering (APG).

Chief Economics Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 8 Sept 2016, 08:08 PM
Updated : 28 March 2017, 08:50 AM

The final report of APG's third phase of mutual evaluation on Bangladesh's management was approved in the group's 19th annual meeting at California's San Diego in the United States on Thursday.

Through the clearance of the report, Bangladesh has averted the risk of being blacklisted for money laundering and terrorism financing in international standards, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said.

Alam headed the 20-member Bangladesh delegation in the meeting which ended on Thursday.

"This success is a result of the tireless work for the past one year by the team of representatives from several agencies and departments of the Bangladesh government," he told bdnews24.com by telephone from California after the meeting.

The meeting had been scheduled to be held in Dhaka on July 22, but it was shifted to San Diego on security fears after the July 1 terror attack on a cafe in the capital which saw 17 foreigners and five others killed.

The Bangladesh delegation that attended the 2016 APG Annual Meeting and Technical Assistance and Training Forum from Sep 5 included representatives from home, law and finance ministries, National Board of Revenue, Anti-Corruption Commission, police and Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU).

The BFIU said in a news release that the risk was created for 'insignificant' ratings in some reviews of compliance with anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) standards though the ratings for Technical Compliance were high.

Bangladesh became 'totally free' from the risk after the evaluation in two other sectors - international communication and terror financing - came out high in the APG meeting, the BFIU said.

Attorney General Alam said the member countries praised Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for her unflinching resolve to stop terrorism, funding terrorism, militancy, money laundering and other crimes.

"Two of the ratings proposed by the assessment team were put to Immediate Outcome, considering the steps taken by the Bangladesh government.

“Some of the member countries proposed to degrade four Immediate Outcome ratings, but the meeting did not consider the proposal. So, Bangladesh has achieved a total of six Immediate Outcome ratings," he said.

"As a result, Bangladesh is in better position than Norway and Sri Lanka in the final report," he added.

Global lenders World Bank and International Monetary Fund launched the evaluation known as Financial Sector Assessment Programme (FSAP) in 2002.

Bangladesh was found noncompliant with most of the AML/CFT standards at the time.

The APG conducted the second round of evaluation in 2008 and Bangladesh fell under the scanner of Financial Action Task Force's (FATF's) International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) in 2010 because of a lack in improvement.

It came out of the ICRG jurisdiction in 2014 following satisfactory improvement in AML/CFT.

The 'FATF blacklist' is a list of Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories (NCCTs).