Compliance
Compliance Corner: Malta, FATF
The latest compliance news: regulatory developments, punishments, guidance, permissions and new product and service offerings.
Malta
Malta's Prime Minister, Robert Abela, has promised that his
country will step up efforts to remove the European Union member
state from the Financial Action Task Force’s so-called grey
list.
Abela, speaking at a conference organised by FinanceMalta, a
public-private body that speaks for the country’s financial
services industry, said he was positive that the nation could get
off the FATF list as soon as possible (source: local media). The
FATF’s decision to put Malta on the list has been a blow to a
jurisdiction in which about 11 per cent of gross domestic product
stems from financial services. (The FATF is an inter-governmental
group of major nations that monitors and pushes for controls over
money laundering.)
Malta was placed on the FATF’s list following shortcomings in
areas such as the prosecution of tax crimes. The FATF’s head, Dr
Marcus Pleyer of Germany, said in late June that although Malta
has made progress since 2019 when a number of “serious concerns”
were noted, problems remained. They included issues such as
criminal texts and related money-laundering cases. Dr Pleyer said
that Maltese authorities also needed to ensure that beneficial
ownership information is accurate and up-to-date.
The Maltese Prime Minister was quoted by media reports last week
as saying that while the Government recognises and is working
towards implementing the action plan agreed with FATF, he is
“heartened by the positive signals already sent by two of the
four rating agencies that rate Malta.”
Speaking at a panel at the FM conference attended by
WealthBriefing, one speaker, William Bailey, chairman of
the Service Providers Economic Group at the Malta Chamber,
said the country should think of removing “certain niches” of
business in Malta, without identifying certain sectors by name.
(There have been concerns that some sectors such as i-gaming are
points of vulnerability. The country has also has been criticised
for its residency/citizenship-by-investment programme.) “That has
brought us to where we are to today,” Bailey said.
