Malta did 'everything it could' in Moneyval-FATF assessment, Finance Minister says

Malta did everything it could in the wake of Moneyval, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana said on Sunday, as government approaches the final verdict on a potential greylisting by the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

During the TV programme Paper Scan, Caruana said that government will be using the few days before the verdict to convince the relevant stakeholders that Malta has worked hard to undertake the relevant recommendations. 

"I won't speculate, and as I said earlier this week we have a closed-box situation where we don't know what the final outcome will be of all this. But what is certain is that Malta did everything it could, and the results achieved so far on the technical aspect are much better than many other countries," Caruana explained.

He added that government "exhausted" itself to ensure passing the Moneyval and FATF assessments - efforts for which were successful with the former, as Malta passed its Moneyval evaluation last April.

"Some time ago I wrote to Ministers and other members where I explicitly said that this journey that we have started will continue, no matter the final outcome on Wednesday," Caruana said.

"The most critical aspect of this discussion is that what Malta was requested to do, it delivered, and it has done so with conviction."

Malta's impending FATF verdict has been the centre of all political discussion in recent days, after it was revealed that the US, UK, and Germany are pushing for a Malta greylisting.

Caruana himself travelled to Germany last Thursday in a bid to convince members of the FATF not to greylist the country after having passed Moneyval in April.

While Malta passed its Moneyval evaluation, the country remains in enhanced follow-up and must continue to report back to Moneyval on progress to strengthen its implementation of AML/CFT measures.

Malta is expected to report back to the Plenary in two years' time.