The Financial Action Taskforce (FATF)’s willingness to conduct an on-site visit in such a relatively short period after the greylisting is ‘an achievement for the Maltese Government’ and ‘quite an impressive result’, financial intelligence expert Yehuda Shaffer said in exclusive comments on theDailySpot.  

On Friday evening, the FATF issued a statement confirming that Malta has substantially completed its action plan and that an on-site visit will be held ‘at the earliest possible date’.

Shaffer explained that although the process is not over yet, news of an on-site visit was a positive sign.

“We’ve seen political commitment. We’ve seen resources allocated. We’ve seen excellent leadership of the process by the National Coordinating Committee and the FIAU. Most importantly, the FATF was presented with actual results,” he said.

We’ve seen excellent leadership of the process by the National Coordinating Committee and the FIAU.

Shaffer referred particularly to the work carried out by the Malta Business Registry regarding Ultimate Beneficiary Ownership, and by the Commissioner for Revenue regarding tax evasion and money laundering.

“We saw actual cases investigated by the FCID, and prosecuted by the Attorney General’s office. We’ve seen action taken by all supervisors, the MFSA, MBR, MGA, the Sanctions Monitoring Board, and dissuasive sanctions have been delivered by the FIAU and the relevant committees,” he added.

“So clearly, a lot has been done in a relatively short time and I think this is commendable. Nevertheless, the FATF still wants to make sure that this is all sustainable, and that is what the on-site visit will be all about,” he said.

A quick look at some countries that were recently taken off the grey list shows that in most cases, countries would get delisted in the plenary following the on-site visit.

Next plenary is scheduled for June.