The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body whose purpose is the development and promotion of policies, both at the national and international levels, to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
The thirty-four members of the FATF are: Argentina; Australia; Austria; Belgium; Brazil; Canada; China; Denmark; the European Commission; Finland; France; Germany; Greece; the Gulf Cooperation Council; Hong Kong, China; Iceland; Ireland; Italy; Japan; Luxembourg; Mexico; the Kingdom of the Netherlands; New Zealand; Norway; Portugal; the Russian Federation; Singapore; South Africa; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Turkey; the United Kingdom; and the United States.
The FATF has teeth, this body can and does ask all the financial institutions under its ambit and coverage to follow its requirements.
So now see what the chairman is saying:
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is concerned that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s lack of a comprehensive anti-money laundering / combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime represents a significant vulnerability within the international financial system. FATF calls upon Iran to address on an urgent basis its AML/CFT deficiencies, including those identified in the 2006 International Monetary Fund Article IV Consultation Report for Iran. FATF members are advising their financial institutions to take the risk arising from the deficiencies in Iran’s AML/CFT regime into account for enhanced due diligence. FATF looks forward to engaging with Iran to address these deficiencies.
You know what this means? this means that most risk and compliance managers within any FATF country will now pull down the shutters on almost every transaction to do with any kind of exposure to any Iranian financial institution. And if you are frozen out of these 34 countries (and the observer countries along with the associate countries), you can effectively wave goodbye to any kind of international transactions.
Barter system, anybody? Who is going to hump the big barrels of oil?
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