Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Olayemi Cardoso has said that consultations are ongoing at the highest levels for the country to exit the “grey list” – an anti-money laundering watchlist of Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF).
Gatekeepers News reports that this comes 24 hours after Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) announced that FATF had approved the country’s fourth progress report since Nigeria was placed under watch.
Before this, FATF had included Nigeria and South Africa on its grey list on February 24, 2024.
According to FATF; Countries on the list are often subjected to increased monitoring and need to intensify efforts to tackle money laundering and terrorism financing.
The task force noted that adding a jurisdiction to its grey list means that the country has committed to resolving identified strategic deficiencies within agreed timeframes swiftly.
Cardoso while addressing the press in Washington DC on Saturday, said removing Nigeria from the grey list has been core in his engagement during the annual meetings of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
He said, “I would like to emphasise that we are consulting at the highest levels to remove Nigeria from FAFT grey lists, a key topic in our recent engagement.”
Speaking on ongoing monetary policy efforts, Cardoso noted that since his team assumed office a year ago, there has been a focus on addressing inflation, restoring investor confidence in the financial markets, and stabilising the exchange rate.
The apex bank governor said CBN also focused on enhancing financial systems provision, fostering financial inclusion, and enhancing transparency “in our monetary policy decisions and communications”.
He continued, “We embarked upon bold and necessary reforms to return to the path of monetary policy orthodoxy, as well as remove observed distortions in the foreign exchange market.”
“Our efforts have yielded significant progress as volatility in the foreign exchange market has abated immeasurably, and remittances have also increased significantly.”
“We have achieved increased transparency and improved overall supply in the foreign exchange market, leading to reduced arbitrage and speculative activities and eliminated the fund loading of foreign exchange demand.”
