International inspectors are today due to begin an on-island assessment of measures taken in Jersey to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Over the next fortnight, a team from European monitoring body Moneyval will judge laws, regulatory and enforcement processes against international standards on tackling financial crime.

The outcome of the assessment will not be made public until May 2024.

Ahead of its visit, the Moneyval team has been sent thousands of pages of documents to consider, including details of the island’s laws and finance sector processes.

Inspectors will be privately interviewing people including civil servants, finance sector staff, regulators, police officers and charity bosses until 11 October.

They will assess whether laws and processes aimed at stopping money being laundered or used to fund terrorism, human trafficking, drug trafficking or arms dealing are technically compliant with international standards.

They will also look at how those measures are applied.

In preparation for assessment, representatives from the government and finance industry have been working closely together for around three years, establishing new structures and lines of communication.

Based upon its last inspection in 2015, Jersey is currently on a “white list”.

Officials say joining Gibraltar, the Cayman Islands and around 24 other places on the “grey list” could damage Jersey’s international reputation, affect its credit rating and make it more difficult and costly for local institutions to do business.

North Korea, Iran and Myanmar are the only countries on the “black list”.

Guernsey is expecting its own Moneyval assessment next year.