ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has issued revised and more elaborative Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financial Terrorism (AML/CFT) guidelines for non-profit organizations (NPOs).
The new guidelines explicitly highlight the consequences of money laundering, terror financing, predicate crimes and other abuses on the NPO sector.
The AML/CFT guidelines for NPOs, firstly issued in September 2018, aimed at facilitating Section 42 Companies Ordinance with compliance with AML/CFT Regulations 2018. The amended version would provide the NPO sector an improved understanding of risks of terror financing, including transnational TF risk.
The guidelines also include major findings of Pakistan’s National Inherent Risk Assessment on money laundering and terrorism financing.
The revised guidelines have elaborated terror financing process including directions, sources and channels of TF; and updated the criteria for assessment of vulnerable or high-risk NPOs.
SECP has amended the guidelines to account for the evolving TF risks and to further make the NPO sector aware of the best practices, good governance measures as well as the red flags to mitigate such risks. The SECP’s AML/CFT guidelines are developed in a manner that these can also be adopted by NPOs registered/licensed with provincial governments.
