NEW DELHI: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in its report today said India’s measures to combat money laundering, terror financing and proliferation financing were assessed and found compliant with the guidelines of the FATF.
The Ministry of Finance said in a statement, “The report places India in the ‘regular follow-up’ category, a distinction shared by only four other G20 countries.”
The three-day final plenary of the FATF ended in Singapore today and said, “The FATF removed two countries — India and Kuwait — from its increased monitoring list following successful on-site visits.” The Paris-headquartered FATF is a global network of over 200 jurisdictions and observers from international organisations.
The plenary session concluded after discussions on key money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation financing issues in Singapore under the Presidency of T Raja Kumar of the same country.
According to a statement from the FATF, the task force discussed and adopted the mutual evaluation report of India which assessed the effectiveness of India’s measures to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, and their compliance with the FATF recommendations.
The plenary concluded that India has reached “a high level of technical compliance with the FATF requirements and regime is achieving good results”. The statement mentioned India’s actions against money laundering and terror-financing saying they understand risk, international cooperation, access to basic and beneficial ownership information, use of financial intelligence, and deprive criminals of their assets and counter-proliferation financing measures.
The Ministry of Finance said this marks a milestone in the nation’s efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. “India’s performance on the FATF evaluation holds significant advantages for country’s growing economy, as it demonstrates the overall stability and integrity of the financial system. Good ratings will lead to better access to global financial markets and institutions and increase investor confidence. It will also help in the global expansion of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India’s fast payment system,” the Ministry of Finance added.