Nepal, Feb. 4 -- Nepal is once more at risk of being greylisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) due to its inability to rectify significant deficiencies in its anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT) framework. The Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) strongly warned against Nepal's grey-listing and in July 2023 it provided a one-year extension until October 2024 to enact reforms and compliance. Nonetheless, despite this vital respite one year later now, the same cautions are reemerging, indicating that Nepal's advancement has been either inadequate or unproductive.

The critical inquiry, consequently, is whether Nepal has effectively employed this one-year timeframe or simply depended on superf...