Ibrahim Al-Assaf

The Saudi banking sector is one of the best in the world, said Fahd bin Abdullah Al-Mubarak, governor of Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency.

The Kingdom’s tight measures against terrorist financing and money laundering crimes are also among the best in the world, said the governor.

His remarks came as the G-20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs ended their meeting in Shanghai on Saturday.

More needs to be done to combat “loopholes and deficiencies” in the world financial system as part of the fight against terrorism, the G-20 finance ministers said in their final communique.

The G-20 officials also urged the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to “intensify its work on identifying, analyzing and tackling terrorist financing threats, the sources and methods of funding and the use of funds.”

The ministers were “resolved to combat decisively terrorist financing” and would intensify efforts to tackle “all sources, techniques and channels of terrorist financing,” they said, pledging to enhance cooperation and information exchange.

Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf, head of the Saudi delegation at the G-20 meeting, said the G-20 delegates reviewed the most prominent developments in the global economy, which is facing challenges in financial markets.

The world’s 20 top economies will use all policy tools available to lift sluggish global growth, they said in the final communique in Shanghai.

The global recovery was continuing but “remains uneven and falls short of our ambition for strong, sustainable and balanced growth,” the G-20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs added.

They met amid fears driven by slowing growth in host nation China, steep falls in world financial markets, and US interest rates having risen for the first time in nine years — while Japan has adopted negative rates.

The G-20 communique cited a list of specific risks the world faces, including volatile capital flows, falling commodity prices and rising geopolitical tensions, along with “the shock of a potential UK exit from the European Union and a large and increasing number of refugees in some regions.”

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