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The presence on this list, while it certainly doesn”t halt financial business, can be a dampener and jurisdictions freed from it can broadcast their compliance credentials more easily.
A Paris-headquartered intergovernmental group focused on
fighting money laundering and counter-terrorism finance has
removed the Cayman Islands and Panama from its “grey list” of
jurisdictions subject to increased monitoring.
Last week the Financial
Action Task Force, aka FATF said it welcomed moves by
the Cayman Islands and Panama in making progress to improve their
AML and CFT regimes. The jurisdictions hailed the result.
Countries that remain on the “increased monitoring” list are
Barbados, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Croatia, Gibraltar, Haiti, Jamaica, Mali,
Mozambique, Nigeria, the Philippines, Senegal, South Africa,
South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, the United Arab
Emirates, Vietnam, and Yemen.
Besides the Cayman Islands and Panama, the group has removed
Albania and Jordan from the list.
Financial services minister André Ebanks, Cayman Islands, this
week welcomed the FATF decision.
“We had a shared determination to step out from under this shadow
as soon as possible, and today we have done exactly
that…Compliance with the FATF standard helps protect all of us as
we conduct everyday business, whether that’s banking, purchasing
local goods, or donating to charities,” he said. (Source: CNG
Media 30 October.)
Panama’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Janaina Tewaney, late last
week praised the FATF action, according to a statement: “After
being added to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list
in June 2019, our administration took office in July of the same
year with a firm commitment to fostering a more robust framework
to fight money laundering and terrorist financing, and nurture a
more transparent financial system.”
“Since then, Panama has successfully implemented several
strategic measures aimed at consolidating our legislative and
regulatory framework to reinforce the fight against money
laundering and enhance the transparency of our financial system
according to international standards,” Tewaney said.
This news service has contacted the Gibraltar and UAE government
for comment, and may update this article in due course. It had
not received a reply at the time of going to press.
Completion
The FATF said it urged jurisdictions to “complete their action
plans expeditiously and within the agreed timeframes.”
“The FATF does not call for the application of enhanced due
diligence measures to be applied to these jurisdictions. The FATF
standards do not envisage de-risking, or cutting-off entire
classes of customers, but call for the application of a
risk-based approach,” it said.
“The Cayman Islands’ removal from FATF’s grey list is great news
for the jurisdiction – basically, the first hurdle has been
cleared, and is a signal that sanctions and penalties are
effective and proportionate – a vital means of demonstrating our
credentials as an international finance centre,” Kareem Robinson,
head of capital markets, Ocorian, in the Cayman
Islands, said in a note yesterday about the change.
“The Cayman Islands has long specialised in collateralised loan
obligations. Following the grey listing, which prompted the
Cayman Islands being added to the EU AML blacklist, managers who
were seeking EU investors to their transaction using Cayman
Islands securitisation SPVs were impacted. The listing triggered
a move to other jurisdictions like Bermuda and Jersey,” Robinson
said. “With the grey listing lifted, we’re anticipating a return
to the Cayman Islands of CLO work from European managers when the
Cayman Islands are removed from the EU AML blacklist in early
2024, which should happen by default following the removal of the
Cayman Islands from the FATF grey list.”
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