Why Payoneer Blocked Pakistan – The Truth

Like every other Payoneer user from Pakistan I became insane after reading support email. However after coming to senses I had done some research about why Payoneer blocked Pakistan. Many readers left comments on earlier post about Payoneer ban for doing protest to Payoneer.

Friends you do not need to protest Payoneer, don’t even have to blame them and they can’t help us in this situation. They have to follow policies of US regularity authorities and its what they are doing.
Reason for this ban is Pakistani law makers.  On March 26th, 2010 Pakistan’s Anti-Money Laundering ordinance of 2008 has expired. So right now Pakistan is a lawless country without any anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist funding laws. Due to that Asia Pacific Group on Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has put Pakistan in category III of risk countries for financial transactions.
Due to absence of proper anti-money laundering laws in Pakistan US government issued new regulations for its financial institutions. This is why Payoneer has included Pakistan in banned countries.
This is a negligence at end of Pakistani law makers who failed to renew the existing ordinance or approve the new anti-money laundering bill which is already approved by national assembly. According to a story published in TheNews Pakistani senate had a meeting on March 18th in which this law was put forward but the senate “had some other important affairs” to deal with so this  law discussion was moved forward to future senate meeting.

Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Finance Senator Ahmed Ali said the committee under his chairmanship approved the bill in great haste with conditions that this bill would be tabled again within one year as the committee wanted to bring certain improvements in it. However, he deplored that their hard work could not bring the desired fruit as the Senate was prorogued without passing such an important bill.
“Despite our hectic work, the Senate did not pass this bill,” he said and concluded that there was still sufficient time available till March 26 and the government should summon the session of upper house on immediate basis in order to pass this bill in the supreme national interest.

No one is our enemy, not Payoneer, not even US government but our own government and law makers. Right now Pakistan officially do not have any anti-money laundering laws. Kudos!