The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has directed stock exchanges and financial companies to embrace anti-money laundering and anti-terror financing measures proposed by the multi-national Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Through a circular issued August 30 to the Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad stock exchanges, National Commodity Exchange Limited and the National Clearing Company, the SECP said all listed companies should abide by the FATF’s instructions for fighting money laundering and terror financing. The instructions were not made available to the public.
The circular also discloses that the FATF had not received a commitment yet from the Iranian and South Korean governments to eliminate the possibility of misuse of their financial firms by unscrupulous elements.
The FATF has identified certain jurisdictions in which financial institutions need to apply measures against money laundering and terror funding and consider the risk associated with not complying, the SECP advised.
“On the advice of the SECP and the State Bank of Pakistan, we often verify the credentials of our customers to ensure that Al-Qaida or the Taliban could not use our banks for financial transactions,” Sirajuddin Aziz, CEO of the Bank Alfalah Limited, told Central Asia Online.
