Cayman Remains On FATF Grey List

• The Cayman Islands remains on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list of 23 countries or jurisdictions that are subject to increased monitoring by the global anti-money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog.
• Just two countries – Pakistan and Nicaragua – were removed from the grey list following the FATF plenary in Paris, France, which was concluded on Friday, October 21st.
• The FATF placed Cayman on the grey list in February 2021, citing as reasons for the move a lack of fines and enforcement actions by Cayman’s regulatory bodies. This automatically led to Cayman also being placed on the European Union grey list in February this year.
• The FATF said, since it was placed on the list, Cayman had made a “high-level political commitment” to work with the FATF and the Caribbean FATF to strengthen its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism regime and had imposed “adequate and effective sanctions in cases where relevant parties (including legal persons) do not file accurate, adequate and up-to-date beneficial ownership information in line with those requirements”.
• Cayman’s Finance Chief Executive Steve McIntosh explains that “this represents significant progress towards the jurisdiction’s removal from the FATF “grey list” and demonstrates the country’s commitment to meeting the highest global standards for transparency, information sharing and the combatting of international financial crime”. Consequently, he remains optimistic that the ongoing efforts by authorities to investigate and prosecute money laundering offences in the jurisdiction will lead to its removal from the grey list in due course.

(Source: Cayman Compass)