Greylist: FATF approves direct visit to Panama

President of the Republic, Laurentino Cortizoreported this Friday that Panama had received approval from the International Financial Action Task Force (GAFI) for an “in situ” visit, after reaching the long overdue 15 actions of its plan.

The Minister of Economy and Finance, Héctor Alexander, emphasized a few days ago in Paris that Panama is ready to receive a visit from the Joint Group of the Americas.

“We want the entire international community to witness this our tangible and concrete resultsas well as their sustainability”, he explained.

The head of the MEF and his working team met with T. Raja Kumar, Chairman of the FATF; Elisa de Anda Madrazo, Vice-President of the FATF and the staff of the FATF Executive Secretariat, who reiterated their commitment at the highest level to ensure the sustainability of the measures implemented to improve the AML/CFT system.

This includes uploading beneficial ownership information to the register, ensuring that it is accurate and that competent authorities have timely access.

FATF meetings began on Monday, June 19, and after the co-chairs of the Americas Joint Group presented the report the last face to face with Panamaconducted in early May, recommended a field visit to FATF ICRG members, who approved it.

In view of this approval of the field visit, the delegations of member countries of the global FATF network, from the Americas, Asia, Europe, as well as international observer organizations, present at the ICRG meeting, recognized the progress of Panama, congratulating the country for obtaining the visit, which represents an important step to get out of the gray list.

“Panama reaffirms its firm commitment and effort, as we are convinced of an effective regime prevention of money laundering and suppression of terrorist financing it’s necessary for the benefit of everyone’s financial and economic system,” Alexander said.

Among the reforms to continue strengthening the system of prevention, control and repression presented by Panama are the development of different risk assessments to ensure that mitigation strategies are appropriate and a significant increase use of intelligence productsas well as a parallel financial investigation.

The adequacy of the legal framework through reforms, regulations and guidelines is also emphasized, in order to ensure compliance of the AML/CFT/CPF system with FATF standards.