FATF: ‘Malta has substantially completed an action plan’
The FATF plenary, which ended today, confirmed that Malta “addressed or largely addressed the action plan at the technical level,” the Government of Malta said on Friday.
In June 2021, the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) included Malta in its list of countries under enhanced monitoring, often referred to as the “gray list”, and became the first and only an EU country that has been graylisted by the global anti-money laundering watchdog. .
In an action plan agreed with the FATF, Malta has made a political commitment to focus its financial intelligence capabilities on tax evasion and money laundering and increase transparency on shell companies.
On Friday, the FATF said it had made the initial determination that Malta had substantially completed its action plan and justified an on-site visit to verify that the implementation of Malta’s anti-money laundering reforms and the fight against terrorist financing (AML / CFT) has begun and is being sustained, and that the necessary political commitment remains in place to support future implementation and improvement.
“Malta has made the following major reforms: (1) further demonstrates that the information on beneficial ownership is accurate and that, where appropriate, effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions are proportionate to the risks of ML / TF, be applied to legal persons if the information. provided is found to be inaccurate; and ensuring that effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions are applied to gatekeepers when they do not comply with their obligations to obtain accurate and up-to-date information on beneficial ownership; (2) improving the use of the FIU’s financial intelligence to support authorities in pursuing criminal tax and related money laundering cases, including by clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the Commissioner for -Income and FIU; and (3) increase the focus of the FIU’s analysis on these types of crimes, to produce intelligence that will help Maltese law enforcement detect and investigate cases in line with the identified ML risks of “Malta related to tax evasion.”
The FATF added that it would continue to monitor the situation of Covid-19 and conduct an on-site visit as early as possible.
The Government noted this decision, while committing itself to continue working towards higher standards.