European Union lawmakers add Lanka into money laundering blacklist

European Union lawmakers who recently voted in favour of including Tunisia onto the bloc’s list of countries considered at high risk of money laundering and terrorism financing have also included Sri Lanka and Trinidad and Tobago into the blacklist.

After Wednesday’s decision, Parliament may meet to discuss the EU money laundering blacklist again when the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) next updates its own money laundering/terrorism financing blacklist, a Parliament spokesman told KYC360.

Parliament will continue using the FATF list methodology to decide which countries should be discussed for blacklisting until later this year, when it will start using its new methodology agreed with the European Commission (EC).

At present there are no plans to change the methodology for the EU money laundering/terrorism financing grey list,  the spokesman was quoted as saying in the report.

The present grey list will continue to enlist the same countries FATF has on its list.

As part of the EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Directive, the EC drafts a list of “high-risk third countries,” but Parliament has veto power over the list. For several months, the EC and Parliament disagreed over the list.