Muhammad Aurangzeb, the Finance Minister of Pakistan, has given a very strong warning. He says that if the country doesn’t keep an eye on its growing digital economy, it could end up back on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list. At a blockchain and digital assets event, the minister said that over 15% of Pakistan’s population are doing unlawful digital transactions, which is a big threat to the country’s financial stability.
Tribune.com.pk quotes Aurangzeb as saying, “If certain level of activity is happening… at this scale, it’s only a question of when, not if, that we are going to get into trouble as a country, as a sovereign again.” He said that Pakistan can’t go back because it got off the FATF gray list in October 2022 after being watched closely for four years and “great difficulty.”
More and more people all throughout the world are listening to what the minister said. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently warned that it is particularly worried about Pakistan’s incapacity to deal with money laundering and corruption. Reports say that more and more illegal activities are employing unmanaged digital wallets and cryptocurrency, even to fund terrorism.
The “Virtual Assets Ordinance, 2025” has been signed by the President of Pakistan. It creates the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) to deal with these issues. The inaugural meeting of the authority will be on Monday, August 25.
India has always said that Pakistan employs terror financing as a government policy, and Pakistan’s record with the FATF has been quite bad. Aurangzeb’s most recent warning makes it further clearer that the country is a threat to world security and financial stability.