New Delhi: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) declared on Friday that New Delhi’s measures to prevent money laundering and the funding of terrorism are “achieving good results” and that India exhibited a “high level of technical compliance” with its criteria.
Following a year-long process during which a FATF delegation visited New Delhi for an on-site examination of India’s measures and spoke with senior authorities, the multinational financial watchdog revealed its conclusions during its plenary conference in Singapore.
An unnamed officer stated, “The intergovernmental organization, which sets international anti-money laundering standards and counter-terrorist financing measures, has not found any red flags in India’s processes.” The “mutual evaluation report” of India, which evaluated the efficacy of the nation’s efforts to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing, as well as their adherence to the watchdog’s recommendations, was considered and approved by the FATF.
“The Plenary concluded that India has reached a high level of technical compliance with the FATF requirements and its AML/CFT/CPF [anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism/counter proliferation financing] regime is achieving good results, including in its ML [money laundering] and TF [terrorist financing] risk understanding, international cooperation, access to basic and beneficial ownership information, use of financial intelligence, and depriving criminals of their assets and counter-proliferation financing measures,” the watchdog said in a statement.
However, the FATF stated that “strengthening the oversight and implementation of preventative measures in several of the nonfinancial sectors” is a necessary improvement.”
Additionally, it stated that India “needs to address delays related to concluding ML and TF prosecutions and to ensure that CFT measures, including outreach to NPOs [non-profit organizations] on their TF risks, are implemented in line with the risk-based approach” in order to prevent the non-profit sector from being exploited for TF”.
An Indian delegation travelled to Singapore in April, as reported by the media, to inform the FATF about the measures that had been taken over the previous ten years to combat money laundering and the funding of terrorism. The assessment was discussed in person by the Indian team, which included representatives from the ministries of finance and external affairs, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the income-tax department, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI).
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