The three-day plenary meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) would begin today (Monday) in Paris to review Pakistan’s progress. The team would decide about the country's fate with respect to the grey list.

The anti-money laundering and terror financing watchdog would review Pakistan's efforts to comply with their recommendations and evaluate the progress. If the organization finds the country's progress satisfactory, they would remove it from the grey list in June 2021 after conducting an onsite visit.

However, in case of non-compliance to any action plan, Pakistan may be given some time to comply with it and consequently, removal may also be delayed beyond June 2021.

Pakistan seems optimistic about the meeting. Officials on the condition of anonymity said that 'Pakistan has submitted a progress report on the remaining six actions plan to FATF last month and now it’s up to them [FATF] to a taken decision on the basis of progress made by the country.'

Previously, the global anti-graft watchdog met in October to assess Pakistan’s progress on the 27-point action plan for addressing anti-money laundering and terror financing and decided to keep Pakistan on its grey list until February 2021.

Pakistan has made great progress to tackle the issues of money laundering and terror financing and successfully complied with 21 out of 27 points of action, the watchdog's President Marcus Pleyer said in his concluding remarks during October meeting.

The FATF had recommended four key areas that the country has to work on to address strategic deficiencies:

1. Demonstrating that law enforcement agencies (LEAs) are identifying and investigating the widest range of terror financing activity, which target designated persons and entities, and those who act on the behalf/direction of the designated persons or entities
2. Demonstrating that terror financing prosecutions result in effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions
3. Demonstrating effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions against all 1267 and 1373 designated terrorists and those acting for or on their behalf; preventing the raising and moving of funds including in relation to non-profit organizations; identifying and freezing assets, and prohibiting access to funds and financial services
4. Demonstrating enforcement against violation of terror financing sanctions, including in relation to NPOs, of administrative and criminal penalties, and provincial and federal authorities cooperating on enforcement cases

Pakistan was placed on the FATF grey list in June 2018 for taking inadequate measures to stop money laundering and terror financing and was given a plan of action to complete by October 2019 or face the risk of being placed on the blacklist along with Iran and North Korea.