Bahamas has made progress says financial task force
Friday, July 9, 2004
PARIS, France: Despite the Bahamas having
made “important progress” towards the enactment and implementation of tough
anti-money laundering measures, the Financial Action Task Force is to continue
monitoring the jurisdiction, citing concerns over its ability to cooperate
internationally.
In its Annual Review of Non-Cooperative
Countries and Territories released last week, the task force noted: “In
particular, the FATF remains concerned about the ability of the Bahamian
authorities to adequately respond to foreign judicial and regulatory
requests.”
According to Tax-News, since securing its
removal from the FATF blacklist in June 2001, the Bahamas has put in place a
number of regulatory measures to reduce the risks of money laundering
activities taking place.
These have included rules requiring banks to
establish a physical presence in the country, and the identification of all
pre-existing accounts before December 2002.
Furthermore, the FATF noted that the Central
Bank has begun to implement an “ambitious” inspection programme, and
acknowledged the establishment by the Attorney General's Office of an
international cooperation unit. The
multilateral body also praised the work of the Financial Intelligence Unit
which received a total of 337 suspicious transaction reports in 2002/2003, of
which 108 were passed on to the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
However, the report went on to add that:
“While the Bahamas has shown significant progress in many areas, the FATF will
continue to monitor the Bahamas as concerns persist concerning the Bahamas’
ability to fully co-operate internationally.”
The Financial Action Task Force was
established by the G-7 Summit in Paris in July 1989 to examine measures to
combat money laundering. In 1990, the FATF issued Forty Recommendations to
address this problem.
The Recommendations were revised for the
first time in 1996 and again in June 2003 so as to take into account changes
in money laundering methods, techniques and trends.
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