An International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation has found that Barbados has made significant progress in strengthening its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) framework and that the island could be removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FAFT) Grey List in 2024.
In a statement issued Monday, following the one-week virtual mission to Barbados, the head of the delegation, Pablo Morra, said that at its October 2023 Plenary, the FATF made the initial determination that Barbados has substantially completed its action plan to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime and warrants an on-site assessment to verify its implementation.
“Verification of the progress made on its action plan could allow Barbados to be removed from the FATF Grey List in 2024,” Morra said.
The FATF identifies jurisdictions with weak measures to combat AML/CFT in two FATF public documents that are issued three times a year.
The FATF said that its process to publicly list countries with weak AML/CFT regimes has proved effective.
It said that as of October 2023, the FATF has reviewed 129 countries and jurisdictions and publicly identified 102 of them. Of these 76 have since made the necessary reforms to address their AML/CFT weaknesses and have been removed from the process.
According to the Grey list issued then, Barbados, Jamaica and Haiti are the three Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries “under increased monitoring”.
Last week, Attorney General Dale Marshall said that Barbados was close to being removed from the FATF Grey List and, thereafter, the European Union’s blacklist.
He told a one-day regional Anti-Money Laundering and Cybercrime conference that being placed on the European Union’s blacklist and the FATF Grey List was negatively impacting some Barbados-based businesses’ ability to conduct business in some jurisdictions and preventing some Barbados diplomatic offices from opening bank accounts in some jurisdictions.