India has been placed in the ‘regular follow-up’ category in the mutual evaluation conducted during 2023-24 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the government said on Friday. Only four other G-20 countries are in that category.
India has reached a high level of technical compliance with the requirements, said FATF. The country’s regime on anti-money laundering, countering the financing of terrorism, and counter-proliferation financing resulting in international cooperation, access to information on basic and beneficial ownership, use of financial intelligence, and depriving criminals of their assets.
The FATF observed that improvements were needed to strengthen the supervision and implementation of preventive measures in some non-financial sectors.
“India also needs to address delays relating to concluding money-laundering and terrorism financing prosecutions, and to ensure that CFT measures aimed at preventing the non-profit sector from being abused for TF are implemented in line with the risk-based approach, including by conducting outreach to NPOs [Non-Profit Organisations] on their TF risks,” it said.
The FATF has recognised the efforts made by India on the issue of mitigating the risks arising from ML/TF, including the laundering of proceeds from corruption, fraud, and organised crime, and the effective measures implemented by India to transition from a cash-based to a digital economy to reduce ML/TF risks.
“This recognition is a testament to the rigorous measures implemented over the last 10 years to safeguard the financial system from ML/TF threats,” the government said.