Barbados will continue to lobby for fairness in the way the European Union assesses the effectiveness of legal and regulatory frameworks related to money laundering.
The country will also be redoubling its efforts to boost such measures to keep pace with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Standards.
Attorney General Dale Marshall outlined these plans on Wednesday as he confirmed that Barbados officially exited the EU’s money laundering blacklist on Tuesday.
In a short statement shared by entities, including the Central Bank of Barbados and Financial Services Commission, Marshall said: “It cannot be understated that Barbados anticipated that delisting would have come sooner, having addressed the recommendations arising from its last [Caribbean Financial Action Task Force] Mutual Evaluation report.
“Barbados was removed from the FATF’s grey list in February 2024 and, a few months later in that same year, resolved five technical compliance ratings, thereby ending the fourth round of mutual evaluations with an overall satisfactory scoring in 38/40 of the FATF Recommendations,” he noted.
“This tremendous achievement was the result of hard work and commitment of public sector individuals and regulators and also private sector players and, on behalf of the Government of Barbados, I extend my deepest gratitude.”
Marshall reminded in the statement that “on June 10, 2025, the European Parliament acknowledged the significant progress made by Barbados to strengthen the effectiveness of our legal and regulatory framework”.
“This meant that Barbados was no longer perceived as a ‘high-risk third country’ posing a threat to the Union’s financial system. The regulation on the foregoing entered into force on August 5, 2025, and therefore, as at [that], Barbados ceased to be on the EU blacklist,” he said.
