Panama a step closer to exiting FATF gray list

The Financial Action Task Force certified Friday, that Panama has substantially completed the action plan agreed in 2019 to address the deficiencies detected in the money laundering prevention regime, which means that the country is close to exiting the gray list of the international organization.

The announcement came at the end of the FATF’s second plenary of the year, held in Paris, France.

Responding to a question from La Prensa in a hybrid press conference, the president of the FATF, Raja Kumar, highlighted the progress made by Panama, noting the change in tone compared to the last conferences, in which the FATF representatives had urged to complete the action plan and even warned about the possibility of including the country on the blacklist.

Kumar pointed out that the country has shown to have a robust system to maintain adequate and updated information on the final beneficiaries of the companies, as well as timely access to information by competent authorities. These recommendations were pending until d a favorable rating with the implementation and upload of information from the registry of beneficial owners.

In a statement published  Friday, the organization referred to other measures adopted by Panama in recent years, such as reinforcing national and sectoral understanding of the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing and taking steps to identify unlicensed money remitters, using a risk-based approach to monitor the non-financial business sector and apply effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions against money laundering violations; make use of the information from the Financial Analysis Unit for money laundering investigations, demonstrate the ability to investigate and prosecute money laundering linked to foreign tax crimes, as well as provide timely and constructive international cooperation.

ON-SITE VISIT
Once the action plan is completed, the next step will be an on-site visit to the country by FATF experts in September to verify progress so far and that the measures taken are sustainable over time.

The agency expects the country to show a high-level political commitment to continue strengthening money laundering prevention.

Once the report from the team of experts has been received, deliberations will be made in the October 2023 plenary, and Panama’s removal from the gray list could be made official.