Financial Services Minister André Ebanks is in Paris, France, this week to find out first hand if Cayman’s efforts to combat money laundering have been enough to get the islands removed from the Financial Action Task Force grey list.
The FATF plenary begins in Paris today, 23 Oct., and concludes on Friday, when a decision on Cayman’s removal from or retention on the list of non-compliant countries will be announced.
Cayman has been on the grey list since February 2021, though the islands have been taking steps to meet required anti-money laundering measures since 2019 when it first became aware that it was likely to be placed on the list.
In June this year, it was announced that Cayman had satisfied all the FATF’s recommended actions, seemingly paving the way for its removal from the list. This was followed three months later by an on-site visit by FATF officials, seen as the final step before the official removal.
A delegation from the Americas Joint Group, a sub-group of the FATF International Cooperation Review Group, visited Cayman last month for the on-site inspection of the measures the islands had taken to prevent money laundering and to successfully prosecute cases.
Ebanks, speaking on Simon Cawdrey’s Money Sense show on Radio Cayman last week, said the report from those inspectors will be presented at the plenary this week.
“If their report is then accepted by an intermediate body, that intermediate body will then recommend to the full plenary, which is the full FATF voting 40-member countries, on Friday, 27 October, on whether or not the report is favourable, and whether or not they’re going to accept the report, and then approve recommendation for the Cayman Islands to be removed from the grey list,” he said.
Asked by Cawdrey if he had any insights into whether the report was, in fact, favourable, Ebanks said while he had seen a draft report of the assessment made by the on-site inspection team, he could not reveal what it says “as FATF proceedings are confidential”.
Cayman is also on a European Union anti-money laundering list, as a consequence of being placed on the FATF grey list in February 2021. Ebanks said Cayman would be removed from that list automatically if it is no longer on the FATF grey list.
The FATF is an intergovernmental organisation tasked with setting international standards and promoting effective measures to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other threats to the global financial system.
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