FATF says India faces severe 'terrorist financing threats' from...

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Thursday praised India's efforts to tackle illicit finance, however, warned the country of serious terrorism and terrorist financing threats, including those related to ISIL or Al Qaeda. 

"India achieved a high-level of technical compliance across the FATF Recommendations and has taken significant steps to implement measures to tackle illicit finance. Nevertheless, India needs to continue to improve its system as its economy & financial system continue to grow," posted FATF on X. Lauding India's measures to tackle illicit finance, the joint FATF-APG-EAG report added, "India has implemented an anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) framework that is achieving good results, including on risk understanding, access to beneficial ownership information and depriving criminals of their assets." 

It also praised Indian authorities for making good use of financial intelligence and co-operate effectively, both domestically and internationally. Meanwhile, the global body to combat money laundering and terrorist financing warned India to focus on concluding the prosecutions and convicting and appropriately sanctioning terrorist financiers. "India faces serious terrorism and terrorist financing threats, including related to ISIL or Al Qaeda.  India as a strong emphasis on disruption and prevention and has demonstrated its ability to conduct complex financial investigations. Nevertheless, the country must continue to improve its system as its economy and financial system continue to grow, in particular ensuring that money laundering and terrorist financing trials are completed and offenders are subject to appropriate sanctions; and taking a risk-based and educative approach with non-profit organisations. The country needs to ensure that measures aimed at preventing the non-profit sector from being abused for terrorist financing are implemented in line with the risk-based approach, including by conducting outreach to non-profit organisations on their terrorist financing risks," added the report. 

India is the largest country in the world by population and has the largest diaspora. It is a lower-middle income country with one of the world's fastest-growing economies that is currently the world's fifth largest economy. India's main money laundering risks originate from illegal activities within the country, these risks relate primarily to fraud, including cyber-enabled fraud, corruption and drug trafficking. India pursues money laundering related to fraud and forgery in line with predicate crime risks to a large extent, but less so with some other offences such as human trafficking and drug trafficking. The country needs to address the backlog of money laundering cases pending conclusion of court processes, added the report. Praising India's efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, the report said, "India has made significant steps in financial inclusion, more than doubling the proportion of the population with bank accounts, encouraging greater reliance on digital payment systems, and making use of simplified due diligence for small accounts. These efforts have supported financial transparency, which in turn contribute to AML/CFT efforts."

 Despite the size and institutional complexity of the Indian system, Indian authorities cooperate and coordinate effectively on matters dealing with illicit financial flows, including the use of financial intelligence. India also achieved positive results in international co-operation, asset recovery and implementing targeted financial sanctions for proliferation financing, the report added. Indian authorities also have a comprehensive understanding of the money laundering, terrorism and proliferation financing risks but need to do more to share insights on these risk across all relevant stakeholders. There is a good understanding of risk and application of preventative measures in the financial sector, especially by commercial banks, although less so by some other smaller financial institutions. Financial Institutions are taking steps to apply enhanced measures to politically exposed persons (PEPs), however, India needs to address the issue of lack of coverage of domestic PEPs from a technical compliance perspective and ensure reporting entities fully implement these requirements. 

Implementation of preventative measures by the non-financial sector and virtual asset service providers, and supervision of those sectors, is at an early stage. India needs to improve implementation of cash restrictions by dealers in precious metals and stones as a priority given the materiality of the sector. Following the assessment, India is placed in "regular follow-up" and in line with procedures, will report back to the Plenary in three years.

 (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from ANI)