Philippine financial regulator push for stricter money laundering laws to avoid being put on the FATF’s grey list

Regulators in the Philippines are worried that they might be put on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) list of countries with questionable commitments to avoid money laundering and terrorism funding.

Being on the so-called grey list would mean facing more restrictions on banking transactions involving the country’s nationals and could mean it is about to be put on the blacklist, which means even more severe sanctions.

To avoid that, the Philippines Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) has urged the government to implement more anti-money laundering (AML) and terrorism financing controls, Bloomberg reported.

AMLC pushed it to implement the changes by October to avoid being put on the blacklist.

This is not the first time the Philippines has been in the FATF’s crosshairs. Back in 2012 it narrowly escaped being blacklisted after it criminalized terrorist financing and allowed quicker freezing of suspicious accounts.

In the next couple of years the country tightened various areas involving transactions from casinos and jewelry traders.