Bangladesh is expecting to get out of the list of “high risk country” of the Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) as the country already addressed the terrorist financing and anti-money laundering issues.
The cost of foreign transactions for business would fall, as a result.
The country would make its case in FATF plenary in Paris next month and the global body would dispatch an on-sight team to visit Dhaka in November, said a senior official of Bangladesh Bank told the Dhaka Tribune.
“The on-sight report would be accepted in FATF Plenary in February. We’re expecting Bangladesh to be delisted from the list of high risk countries.”
He expected the country would no longer be termed as a high risk country after February next year, and it would become a compliant country as far as terrorist financing and anti-money laundering issues are concern.
Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor Abu Hena Mohammad Razee Hassan said the Anti Terrorism Act [ATA] in Bangladesh meets all the elements of international standards.
Asia Pacific Regional Review Group, a FATF committee, has expressed satisfaction over the anti-terrorism and money laundering laws and regulations Bangladesh enacted recently, he said.
“We met the APRRG team in Malaysia and they also endorsed the same view,” he added.
Bangladesh is now framing the rules of Anti Terrorism Act, which would be issued soon, Hassan told a World Bank organised training programme on UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) related to terrorist financing.
In addition, Bangladesh is complying with the requirements of the UNSCR since the inception of financial intelligence unit (FIU) in Bangladesh Bank, he said.
The FIU has now a wide coverage in line with the FATF recommendations in February, 2012 and it included prevention, suppression and disruption of proliferation of weapons of mass destructions, and financing to it, Hassan added.
Another Bangladesh Bank official said, in general, the charge for confirmation of letter of credit (LC) ranges between 0.25% and 0.5% of the LC value. But in case of Bangladesh like all other high risk countries the charge is 1% higher.
“If the high risk country label is withdrawn, we will not have to pay the additional amount as risk premium.”
Bangladesh during the last three years enacted a number of laws related to terrorist financing and anti-money laundering and became a member of the Egmont Group in July 2013, an organisation of the financial intelligence units all over the world, said the official.
Bangladesh in 2009 submitted a report to the Asia Pacific Group, the Asian wing of FATF, but it received poor rating and branded as high risk country.
“Bangladesh was put into the basket of FATF listing in 2010 as its rating was not satisfactory and it was termed as a high risk country that resulted in foreign exchange transactions costlier,” the official said.
In the last fiscal, the two-way international trade of the country stood at about $60b, about 60% of the gross domestic product.
