FATF chief: good start for Malta but more work needed to get off greylist

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) President Marcus Pleyer said Malta has made “good progress” to get off the greylist.

“Malta has made good progress across its action plan including by imposing an increasing number of penalties, with dissuasive average fines for the filing of incorrect beneficial ownership information,” he said.

Addressing a press conference, Pleyer said since being greylisted, the country has done well to disseminate information to the Police Force related to tax crimes.

“It [Malta] has also disseminated additional financial intelligence to the Malta Police concerning money laundering linked to tax crimes leading to a greater number of tax based money laundering investigations than in the years past,” the FATF president said.

Government has received criticism from the Opposition for failing to address Malta’s greylisting in a meaningful way in the budget presented last week.

Opposition finance spokesperson Mario de Marco accused the government of picking on the small fish to try and impress international assessors.

However, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana has insisted that a lot of work is being done behind the scenes on the recommendation of the FATF assessors.

“We had a recent meeting with the FATF committee and they saw the improvements we are doing and if we maintain the pace we can be subjected to another review next year,” Caruana said during a debate on Xtra.

Pleyer also said more work remains to be done by Malta.

“However, there is more work that remains - as none of Malta’s action plans have been largely addressed in the short time since the listing in June. So the FATF has seen good initial steps for Malta and encourages it to continue its improvements and address all the items in the action plan,” he said.

Malta was placed on the greylist in June, after it failed to garner the necessary support from FATF members, despite its adherence to a Moneyval assessment in which it achieved a high compliance rate on various recommendations.