Report: Global Financial Watchdog Shifts to Annual Reviews

Photo: Reuters [via Al Jazeera]

The Facts

  • According to an Al Jazeera report, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — founded by the G7 in 1989 — is planning to strengthen its surveillance by implementing annual reviews to ensure countries enforce anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules on crypto providers.

  • The reputational risks include being placed on either a "blacklist" or a "graylist," which subject the designated countries to increased monitoring and disrupts their access to the global financial system.


The Spin

Establishment-critical narrative

With its suspiciously obscure background, FATF ironically pushes massive regulation and scrutiny in the name of so-called "transparency" but at the risk of toppling financial freedom and privacy. Ruling with an iron fist, the global watchdog enforces its feigned "recommendations" with the threat of reputational ruin to anyone unwilling — or unable — to comply.

Pro-establishment narrative

Digital currencies are a fast-growing market with many benefits but also many risks. Without close monitoring and regulation, the crypto world will become a safe haven for terrorist financing and money laundering — a non-compliant country's reputation is a small price to pay to combat this transnational threat.


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