St. Kitts and Nevis remains committed to ensuring that its financial services jurisdictions
are not used for money laundering and are properly regulated, according to Prime Minister
Denzil Douglas.
Douglas said that St. Kitts and Nevis will host the 28th Plenary and 25th Ministerial
Meeting of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) from November 17. The event will host officials from CFATF Member Territories,
and the meeting is expected to attract 160 delegates.
“We want to ensure that our jurisdictions – the Nevis Financial
Services and the St. Kitts Financial Services – do not support in any
way the use of the Federation and its services for money laundering and for
the support of terrorism and its financing,” said Prime Minister Douglas.
St. Kitts and Nevis currently serves as Deputy Chair of the Caribbean Financial
Action Task Force (CFATF).
The meetings planned for late November are part of an ongoing commitment to
enforce stricter regulation in the twin-island federation's financial institutions
and ensure that the jurisdiction remains off the Financial Action Task Force
(FATF) 'blacklist'.
The principal focus of the CFATF assessments is to bring all of its member
countries into compliance with what are known as the FATF's “forty plus
nine” recommendations. These recommendations are geared towards strengthening
the financial services regulatory framework in member countries to detect and
prevent money laundering and terrorism financing.