The strengthened regulatory regime for the financial services sector has drawn the endorsement of the Financial Action Task Force [FATF], the same organization that blacklisted The Bahamas in 2000.
But the FATF will continue to monitor the sector as concerns linger regarding international cooperation.
In its latest assessment of countries and territories as a means of enforcing a global dragnet against money laundering, the FATF lauded regulatory steps like the Financial Intelligence Unit [FIU], the Central Bank’s inspection programme and the Attorney General’s international cooperation unit.
“The Bahamas has shown progress in implementing its anti-money laundering regime and more recently has been addressing the ongoing concerns regarding international cooperation,” noted the FATF’s Annual and Overall Review of Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories.
“The FATF will continue to monitor the situation in The Bahamas for the time being; however if The Bahamas continues to respond adequately to requests for international cooperation, the FATF will end monitoring in the near future.”
FATF members have expressed those concerns about international cooperation, like Switzerland whose prosecutors just recently blamed a lack of adequate assistance from The Bahamas for its decision to drop a pivotal investigation into Bank al Taqwa, accused of being involved in terrorist financing.
The bank had a Bahamas branch that was targeted by the investigation, but it has since been shut down.
Despite this, the financial organization acknowledged that by December 2004, The Bahamas had made progress in this area and responded to all outstanding regulatory requests from FATF members and signed an agreement for future information exchange with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
As for another integral regulatory arm, the FIU, between January and May 2005, it received 67 suspicious transaction reports, was in the process of analyzing 55 and passed eight on to the police force for investigation.
“The government also continued to respond productively to international requests for information,” the report said.
Between February and May 2005, The Bahamas received 20 new regulatory requests and had responded to 19, according to the assessment.
The FATF is a grouping of the world’s richest industrialized nations that blacklisted The Bahamas in 2000, classifying it as being non-cooperative in the fight against money laundering.
Since then, the organization has undertaken a round of reviews of the ‘non-cooperative’ countries and territories initiative.
The main focus for this year’s evaluation was on widening the community of jurisdiction committed to fighting money laundering and terrorist financing, according to President Jean-Louis Fort.
The FATF sets international anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing standards, monitors compliance with those standards and promotes worldwide application of FATF standards. It also encourages compliance of non-FATF members with FATF standards and studies methods and trends of money laundering and terrorist financing.
By: Tameka Lundy, The Bahama Journal
