In May 2023 the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) held its annual Private Sector Consultative Forum (PSCF) in Vienna, hosted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the PSCF allows members to engage directly with the private sector and civil society, and in order to deepen partnerships in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. In 2023, 250 representatives attended, which included parties from the financial sector, non-financial businesses and professions, civil society, academia, FATF members and other stakeholders.
Mr Kumar, FATF President, highlighted the importance of adopting a ‘whole-of society’ approach in the fight against crime, entailing collaboration between the private sector and the FATF in order to effectively tackle financial crime.
Another focus of the PSCF was the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, the most effective way to achieve this was stated to be via multi-stakeholder dialogue with the non-profit community and the proper implementation of the risk-based approach with appropriate counter-terrorism measures and procedures. Additionally, participants agreed on the importance of deepening public-private partnerships in the fight against illicit finance.
Thematic discussions focused on payment transparency and digital transformation, including the use of SupTech for supervisory purposes and RegTech for more effective and efficient compliance by the private sector.
It is expected there will be forthcoming updates to the FATF best practices paper on preventing the abuse of non-profit organisations for terrorist financing and possible revisions to FATF Recommendation 8. There was also mention of other projects including regarding the illicit funding from cyber-enabled fraud and misuse of citizenship by investment schemes.
The FATF closed the Forum reinforcing that there is no short-term solution in the fight against financial crime and reiterating the importance of high organisation and collaborative networks between the public and private sectors.
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Written by Andie Henderson - Legal and Compliance Associate | The Legal Opinions