In Paris today, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) announced that it will meet on 9-11 February, 2005 to report on progress to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
The upcoming FATF Plenary will assess and update the efforts made by Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCTs) in the fight against money laundering, and will also report on new proposals to strengthen international cooperation in this field.
It is anticipated that Mr. Jean-Louis Fort, the President of the FATF, and its new Executive Secretary, Mr. Alain Damais, will hold a news conference on Friday 11 February to report on the outcome of the Plenary.
The FATF’s NCCT initiative focuses on identifying non-cooperative countries and territories in the fight against money laundering. Specifically, this has meant the development of a process to seek out critical weaknesses in anti-money laundering systems which serve as obstacles to international co-operation in this area. The FATF says the goal of this process is to reduce the vulnerability of the financial system to money laundering by ensuring that all financial centres adopt and implement measures for the prevention, detection and punishment of money laundering according to internationally recognised standards.