By Larry Wright
Germany is placed at the role of the presidency for the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) put together by the Group of Seven nations in 1989. The FATF is an intra-government regulatory agency that screens countries for corruption and financial transparency, and security. Germany has been placed at the 14th rank in terms of the most secure financial jurisdiction in the world. This rank is better than UK, USA, and Switzerland.
However, it still puts Germany below developing countries like the Bahamas and Panama. An anti-corruption report published recently has blasted all political claims to deal with the region’s crypto-related scams and money-laundering attempts. The report claims that there is an acute lack of development and work done in this sector which reflects poorly on the government considering the massive financial damages caused by the Wirecard scam last year.
According to the report, the main issue in Germany lies with its political distribution system. The sixteen states that made up Germany are given the freedom to constitutionally take care of financial crimes and impose law enforcement activities in their respective territory. This system, in turn, creates a restriction for coordination and cooperation to intercept finance-related crimes.
Last month, the 6th anti-money laundering directive came into effect in all EU countries. The European Commission is planning to find and reprimand legislative loopholes and introduce new regulations to ensure a better response. An EU committee member commented that thus far, no region has put enough efforts or investments to intercept the financial crimes in their jurisdiction.
German Journalist Claims that Germany does not Deserve to Pass the FATF Review for 2021
Christoph Trautvetter is a German Journalist and author. Talking to the media, he explained that under the current circumstances, Germany does not deserve to pass its 2021 FATF review. FATF made a surprise trip to Germany in 2010 when RWE Utility Group and Deutsche Bank were raided. The financial institutions were charged with unhealthy CO2 emissions and unconstitutional value-added tax scandals.
However, this year Germany has been put in the presidential seat despite all the bad records. Trautvetter further added that Germany does not have ample human or material resources to effectively save the country against the dangers of issues like cryptocurrency scams and financial crimes like money laundering in general.