Report: Global Financial Watchdog Shifts to Annual Reviews
According to an Al Jazeera report, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — founded by the G7 in 1989 — is planning to strengthen its surveillance by implementing annual reviews to ensure countries enforce anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules on crypto providers.
Facts
- According to an Al Jazeera report, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — founded by the G7 in 1989 — is planning to strengthen its surveillance by implementing annual reviews to ensure countries enforce anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules on crypto providers.1
- The reputational risks include being placed on either a "blacklist" or a "graylist," which subject the designated countries to increased monitoring and disrupts their access to the global financial system.2
- As of October this year, there are 23 countries on the graylist, including, among others, Haiti, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen, with Nicaragua and Pakistan having been recently removed.3
- The shift to yearly reviews — in place of mutual evaluations that run on 10-year cycles — means that countries will have less time to implement the global watchdog's policies, increasing the likelihood that they end up on the graylist, according to two sources familiar with the matter.1
- In response to this alleged upcoming change, cryptocurrency industry leaders are reportedly planning to propose a policy framework at the G20 summit in Bali on Nov. 15 - 16.1
Sources: 1Al Jazeera, 2Financial Crime Academy and 3FATF.
Narratives
- Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Bitcoin Magazine. With its suspiciously obscure background, FATF ironically pushes massive regulation and scrutiny in the name of so-called "transparency" but at the risk of toppling financial freedom and privacy. Ruling with an iron fist, the global watchdog enforces its feigned "recommendations" with the threat of reputational ruin to anyone unwilling — or unable — to comply.
- Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Fatf-Gafi. Digital currencies are a fast-growing market with many benefits but also many risks. Without close monitoring and regulation, the crypto world will become a safe haven for terrorist financing and money laundering — a non-compliant country's reputation is a small price to pay to combat this transnational threat.
