Sri Lanka meets international assessment, targets preventing money laundering

In accordance with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the country’s preliminary measures to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, which are expected to be adopted at the annual general meeting of the Asia-Pacific Anti-Money Laundering Group (APG) to be held in July next year, have been implemented according to the scheduled dates and planed.

Commenting on this, Director of the FIU, Dr. Subhani Keerthirathna stated that Sri Lanka has already passed three major milestones in the third mutual evaluation process of the Asia-Pacific Anti-Money Laundering Group (APG).

The APG, a regional body affiliated with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), assesses countries’ compliance with global AML/CFT standards. Sri Lanka is already meeting the timelines for this reform and assessment process, which is scheduled to run until mid-2027.

Sri Lanka’s technical and contextual information was submitted to the APG Secretariat on February 20. This was followed by a meeting with the APG Secretariat and assessors on March 12, chaired by the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe, with the participation of all relevant public sector stakeholders.

“The country has also met the March 20 deadline for the submission of the technical assessment report,” Keerthiratne added. This process has provided an opportunity to clarify the legal, regulatory and institutional framework of the country before the next phase of the evaluation.

A special on-site visit by APG evaluators is planned to be held from October 26 to November 6 this year. During this period, public and private sector institutions, including banks and other financial institutions, are to be interviewed.

Following this entire process, the final mutual evaluation report is expected to be adopted at the APG Annual General Meeting to be held in July 2027.

Source: Daily News