Terrorism financing: Bangladesh no longer risky

Central Bank spokesperson, also the Executive Director Subhankar Saha made the disclosure on Thursday, reports Bangla Tribune. He said the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), global body that ranks countries, has come to this conclusion after Bangladesh’s report was found satisfactory during its conference in California from September 6-8. APG is an autonomous and collaborative international organisation founded in 1997 in Thailand consisting of 41 members and a number of international and regional observers. It assists its members to establish national coordination mechanisms to better utilise resources to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. APG, which is an associate member of Paris-based international organization- the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), conducted its first evaluation on Bangladesh and was accepted by its plenary in 2003 and second one in 2008. Then Bangladesh was included in “Grey list” of risky countries in 2012. Later, as per the recommendations of APG, the government here made moves to resolve the issue and reformed laws to improve the situation.  In 2014, FATF delisted Bangladesh’s name from the list. Then, It was announced that “Bangladesh is therefore no longer subject to FATF's monitoring process under its on-going global AML/CFT compliance process and the country would work with Asia-Pacific Group (APG) as it continues to address the full range of AML/CFT issues identified in its mutual evaluation report.” Meanwhile, FATF has identified 11 countries with high-risk and non-cooperative jurisdictions regarding terror financing- Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Guyana, Iran, Iraq, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Syria, Uganda, Vanuatu and Yemen. In 2016, Iran and Democratic People's Republic of Korea remain top of the list. FATF remains particularly and exceptionally concerned about Iran’s failure to address the risk of terrorist financing and the serious threat this poses to the integrity of the international financial system. The FATF has urged Iran to immediately and meaningfully address its AML/CFT deficiencies, in particular by criminalising terrorist financing and effectively implementing suspicious transaction reporting requirements. If Iran fails to take concrete steps to continue to improve its CFT regime, the FATF will consider calling on its members and urging all jurisdictions to strengthen counter-measures. At the same time, FATF also remains concerned by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) failure to address the significant deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime and the serious threat this poses to the integrity of the international financial system.