Barbados has made significant progress in the effort to combat money laundering and terrorism financing.
The Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), in its latest report on the island, said only “minor” recommended actions now had to be taken after Government took several steps to follow its advice over the year.
This news comes ahead of a visit by assessors between December 5 and 16. In its 14th Follow-Up Report Barbados 2016, CFATF said “the enactment of various pieces of legislation in particular the Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (Prevention and Control) Act (MLFTA) resulted in substantial improvement in the level of compliance with the examiners’ recommendations”.
It added: “Additional measures improved the level of compliance.
“Some of the measures included the establishment of the Financial Services Commission, which issued the Anti-Money Laundering/Combating Terrorist Financing (AML/CFT) Guidelines in October 2012.
“In the report of May 2013, as a result of minimal improvement in the level of compliance of outstanding recommendations, Barbados was placed in the first stage of enhanced follow-up.”
Also, when the last report was filed in May last year, Barbados was deemed to have fully complied with a number of other recommendations.
“The majority of the outstanding recommended actions are minor.
“The authorities were advised that the time frame for proposed measures should be reconsidered particularly those involving enactment of legislation to ensure that measures are in place for Barbados to exit the follow-up process,” the latest report noted.
Barbados has enhanced its standing with CFATF over the last year having implemented various pieces of legislation.
This included The International Business Unit Guidelines, The Criminal Assets Recovery Fund Bill Of 2015, and The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Act 2015.
There were also “consequential amendments” to other laws including the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, Proceeds of Crime Act, and the Money Laundering And Financing Of Terrorism (Prevention And Control) Act.
In terms of other steps Barbados needed to take, CFATF said “outstanding recommended actions include a legislative requirement for financial institutions to determine the natural persons that ultimately control the customer, and defining the term ‘beneficial ownership’ in the MLTFA with regard to the level of ownership”.
“No new measures have been implemented to deal with this recommended action for this report,” the report added.
It also referred to other “outstanding recommended action”.
This included “an independent audit function, training in new techniques and trends in money laundering and terrorist financing, and screening procedures for new employees to be extended from the licensees of the [Central Bank of Barbados] and the [Financial Services Commission] to all financial institutions. (SC)