BSP welcomes the Philippines' removal from AML/CFT grey list

The central bank said that it has strengthened its AML/CFT regime.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has welcomed the Philippines’ removal from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list.

The grey list indicated that the Philippines is subject to “increased monitoring” to address what the FATF calls “strategic deficiencies” in their regimes money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing.

The Philippines was placed under the list in June 2021.

Its removal signifies that the country has strengthened the effectiveness of its anti-money laundering (AML)/ countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) regime, the BSP said in a statement posted on its website.

“Since the country’s inclusion in the grey list in June 2021, the BSP has worked with the Anti-Money Laundering Council and other government agencies to ensure timely execution of action plans to strengthen the country’s AML and countering terrorism and proliferation financing (CTPF) regime,” the central bank said.

Amongst action plan items done include the implementation of new registration requirements for money or value transfer services and applying sanctions to unregistered and illegal money remittance operators.

The BSP also enhanced the effectiveness of targeted financial sanctions framework for both terrorist financing and proliferation financing.