KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica is now more than 90 per cent compliant with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), currently satisfying 37 of the 40 that are outlined in the FATF.

This is according to Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke who provided an update of Jamaica’s status during a statement in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

He explained that FATF’s recommendations constitute the international standards by which the preventative measures taken by each country to combat the risks posed by criminals to launder the proceeds of crime and finance terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are assessed.

As such, Jamaica is now more compliant than it has ever been with its anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) reporting requirements.

Clarke pointed out that Jamaica’s 4th Round Mutual Evaluation, which was conducted in 2015 by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force and published in 2017, concluded that Jamaica was compliant or largely compliant in only 17 of the recommendations. That effectively resulted in Jamaica being placed on a grey list for having strategic deficiencies in its regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing.

Since the publication of the 2015 assessment in 2017, the Government has applied for re-rating of the assessment of Jamaica’s compliance with the 40 FATF recommendations on three occasions – in 2020, in 2022 and with the last such occasion being in 2023.

“With the 2023 re-rating, in aggregate, Jamaica’s performance has now resulted in a total of 20 recommendations being upgraded to compliant or largely compliant since the 2015 mutual evaluation. This means that Jamaica is now compliant or largely compliant in 37 out of 40 FATF recommendations,” Clarke boasted.

The finance minister pointed out that the sticking point was to bring lawyers into the anti-money laundering framework which requires them to report suspicious financial transactions. That was achieved after the UK-based Privy Council rejected concerns by the Jamaican Bar Association that this was an infringement on the right to privacy. The Privy Council’s decision was handed down in February.

Clarke said the government was moving apace to ensure that Jamaica complies with the remaining three standards by next February.