The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said it expects the Philippines to exit the money laundering “gray list” of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force by Friday next week.
BSP Governor Eli Remolona Jr., who is also the chair of the Anti-Money Laundering Council, said the chances of the Philippines exiting the list is “better than 50 percent.”
“We’ve done all that they asked us to do. In fact, we’ve done more than what they’ve assessed. So I think there’s a good chance that we will be off the list by the evening of Feb. 21,” Remolona said in an interview with Cathy Yang’s Money Talks.
The FATF on Oct. 25, 2024 announced that it made the initial determination that the Philippines substantially completed its action plan and warrants an onsite assessment.
Exiting the gray list will benefit Filipinos, especially overseas Filipino workers, through faster and cheaper remittances and other cross-border transactions, the BSP said.
The Philippines was included in the FATF gray list in June 2021. Since then, the BSP said it had worked with the national government to further strengthen the country’s risk-based anti-money laundering/countering terrorism and proliferation financing (AML/CTPF) supervisory regime.
Under the National AML/CFT Coordinating Committee’s Supervision of Financial Institutions Sub-Committee, the BSP said it helped the Anti-Money Laundering Council, Securities and Exchange Commission and Insurance Commission achieve significant milestones in risk-based AML/CTPF supervision.
