

Durrant Pate/Contributor
The global Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has cited Jamaica for failing to complete its action plan, which fully expired in January 2022.
As a result, the financial watchdog agency issued a report on its website over the weekend, again expressing concern that the island failed to complete its action plan as well as detailing other countries like Jamaica, which are of concern.
“The FATF strongly urges Jamaica to swiftly demonstrate significant progress in completing its action plan by October 2023 or the FATF will consider next steps, which could include calling on its members and urging all jurisdictions to apply enhanced due diligence to business relations and transactions with Jamaica,” the report read.
The FATF has warned that it will “urge all jurisdictions to apply enhanced due diligence to business relations and transactions with Jamaica.”
Barbados is also a country of concern.
Jamaica’s failed high-level commitment
Since February 2020, when Jamaica made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) to strengthen the effectiveness of its Anti-Money Laundering/Counter the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime, the country has taken steps towards improving its AML/CFT regime. This by including and ensuring that its definition of beneficial ownership is in line with the FATF Standards.
According to the report, “Jamaica should continue to work on implementing its action plan to address its strategic deficiencies, including by: (1) ensuring adequate, risk-based supervision in all Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Profession (DNFBP) sectors; and (2) demonstrating that accurate and up-to-date basic and beneficial ownership information is available on a timely basis to competent authorities, and effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions are applied.”
The report acknowledged that Jamaica has taken steps toward improvement “by ensuring that its definition of beneficial ownership is in line with the FATF Standards” following its 2020 “high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and CFATF to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime.”
FATF knocks Barbados
Barbados has also been cautioned by the FATF that it “will consider next steps if there is insufficient progress” on its action plan, which expired in April 2022.
“The FATF strongly encourages Barbados to make significant progress toward completing its action plan by October 2023,” the report added.
The report praised Barbados for taking steps to strengthen its AML/CFT framework, including “demonstrating that accurate and up-to-date beneficial ownership information is available on a timely basis and pursuing repatriation and sharing of confiscated assets with other countries.”

The FATF is urging the country to work on “implementing its action plan to address its strategic deficiencies,” specifically, “ensuring adequate, risk-based supervision in all DNFBP sectors and demonstrating that accurate and up-to-date basic and beneficial ownership information is available on a timely basis to competent authorities, and effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions are applied.”
They did, however, caution the government to “work on implementing its action plan to address its strategic deficiencies by demonstrating that the levels of suspicious activity reporting by certain reporting entities are in line with the risks.”
Jurisdictions under increased monitoring are actively working with the FATF to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing.
When the FATF places a jurisdiction under increased monitoring, it means the country has committed to resolve swiftly the identified strategic deficiencies within agreed timeframes and is subject to increased monitoring. This list is often externally referred to as the “grey list”.
The following countries had their progress reviewed by the FATF since February 2023: Albania, Barbados, Burkina Faso, Cayman Islands, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gibraltar, Jamaica, Jordan, Mali, Mozambique, Panama, Philippines, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Turkey, UAE, and Uganda.
For these countries, updated statements are provided. Haiti, Nigeria, Syria, Tanzania and Yemen chose to defer reporting; thus, the statements previously issued for those jurisdictions are included but it may not necessarily reflect the most recent status of the jurisdictions’ AML/CFT regimes. Following review, the FATF now also identifies Cameroon, Croatia and Vietnam.
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