Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has reaffirmed India’s political commitment to fighting money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing.

She was addressing the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) Ministerial Meeting in Washington D.C. on Thursday, conducted alongside the 2022 Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This meeting focussed on Ministers’ providing strategic direction by endorsing the FATF’s priorities for the years 2022-24 and reinforcing Ministers’ commitment to ensuring suitable funding for the delivery of the strategic priorities which are strengthening the FATF Global Network, FATF systems of mutual evaluations, enhancing international beneficial ownership transparency, increasing capabilities to more effectively recover criminal assets, leveraging digital transformation, and ensuring sustainable funding for FATF strategic priorities.

 

During the meeting, she acknowledged and appreciated FATF for their work on Beneficial Ownership Transparency, Asset Recovery, and the role of the FATF Global network in safeguarding the global financial system, a statement issued by the Finance Ministry said.

The Paris-based FATF has placed Pakistan on its grey list since June 2018 for failing to check money laundering, leading to terror financing, and was given a plan of action to complete it by October 2019. Since then, Pakistan had continued to be on the FATF’s list due to its failure to comply with the FATF mandates. The FATF currently has 39 members, including two regional organisations -- the European Commission and Gulf Cooperation Council. India is a member of the FATF consultations and its Asia Pacific Group.

 

On Thursday, she also attended Ministerial Dinner for Development Committee members in Washington D.C.. She called for addressing #Fragility #Conflict & #Violence #FCV challenges as necessary to achieve twin goals of ending extreme poverty & boosting shared prosperity, esp. when up to two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor will live in #FCV countries by 2030.

 

In a series of tweets, Finance Ministry said she highlighted that sectors such as livelihood, support, education, health and groups such as women, youth and children should always be prioritised while engaging with Fragile and Conflict-affected Situations (FCS countries).

Meeting with CEO

Earlier, she met Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of leading global companies, which include Punit Renjen (Deloitte), Michael Miebach (Master Card), Julie Sweet (Accenture) and Raj Subramanian,

 

During the meeting, Renjen mentioned that Deloitte is expanding its India operations to smaller cities like Coimbatore & Bhubaneswar. Besides, he said, the company has developed tools to improve the access of rural poor to health facilities & also committed to climate action in India.

In the meeting with Miebach, the Finance Minister spoke about the government’s commitment to digital financial inclusion, focusing on women and SMEs by developing world-class homegrown technology solutions. She enquired from him about how lessons from India’s financial inclusion programme can be used to develop solutions for the world. He informed Sitharaman that Mastercard has set up huge #DataCentres in India and is focusing on training and digitisation of small businesses.

Accenture’s Sweet lauded the proactive & transparent approach of the Government of India and said that her firm is adding a presence in more Tier-II cities in India & focusing on upskilling talent to prepare for emerging opportunities. She also informed that 47 per cent of their workforce in India are women.

In his meeting, Subramanian mentioned that he is optimistic about India & has significant expansion plans, including skilling. His company is also looking at R&D Centres in India. He appreciated the government’s commitment to integrated development through the PM Gati Shakti Master plan.

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