Narrow escape for Pak from \'blacklist\', FATF grants four-month ultimatum

New Delhi/ Islamabad: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Friday strongly urged Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by February 2020.

'Otherwise should significant and sustainable progress not be made across the full range of its action plan by next Plenary, the FATF will take action including urging members to advise their financial institutions to give special attention to business relations/transactions with Pakistan,' the global terror watchdog said.

However, according to sources, the chances of formal black listing for the terror funding nation is highly probable by 2020.

'In light of the additional fact of Pakistan's poor performance on its Mutual Evaluation, chances of Pakistan exiting the FATF's Grey List in the next few years are now reduced to nil. The possibility of a formal Black Listing in Feb 2020 is now highly probable,' sources to news agency ANI reported.

Getting blacklisted for Pakistan would mean entering into a very precarious financial situation as it would get difficult to get financial aid from the IMF, the World Bank, and the European Union.

Pakistan, given its inadequate performance, managed to pass in only five of 27 items, according to an official privy and was close to the 'dark grey' list.

'Dark Grey' was the term used for warning up to the 3rd Phase. Now it's just called warning -- that is the 4th phase.

The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

Pakistan was placed on the Grey List by the Paris-based watchdog in June last year and was given a plan of action to complete it by October 2019 or face the risk of being placed on the blacklist with Iran and North Korea.

(with inputs from PTI)

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