The Cayman Islands Financial Services Association (CIFSA) has sought to correct
what it considers as a “misrepresentation” of the standards of regulation
within the UK’s Overseas Territories in a statement made recently in
a report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the UK’s House of Commons.
The PAC report suggested that the standards of financial regulation in most
of the Territories were not as good as those which exist in the UK Crown Dependencies
such as the Isle of Man and Jersey.
Eduardo Silva, Chairman of CIFSA was quick to respond to the statements comparing
the two groups of UK Territories.
“CIFSA generally welcomes discussions on offshore centres because it improves
the level of information on the important role of jurisdictions like the Cayman
Islands. But we also feel that on occasions like this it is equally important
to correct any misrepresentations, particularly those may impact international
perceptions of the standards of regulation in the Cayman Islands," he commented.
Silva further revealed that Jersey officially
recognises Cayman’s anti money laundering (AML) practices as equivalent
to its own. This means that the Jersey Financial Services Commission’s
AML/CFT requirements are satisfied if a client has met Cayman’s customer
identification procedures.
The FSC in Jersey has said that financial institutions
can rely on the ‘know-your customer’ and ‘due diligence’
work of the institutions in Cayman as being as robust as the laws that must
be followed in Jersey, he noted.
“As evidence of the equivalence of Cayman regulatory standards, we note
that the strong rate of compliance by the Cayman Islands banking sector is clearly
recognised by the Public Accounts Committee in its own report to the UK Government
with Cayman 63% compliant with global standards, matching the rate of the Crown
Dependencies," added Silva.
CIFSA also stated that the most recent CFATF report had found the Cayman Islands
financial services industry to have a strong anti-money laundering and counter
terrorist financing compliance culture.
In the examination, Cayman was recognised
to be compliant in 38 out of 49 measures, which was ahead of the results obtained by
the UK, Canada, Spain, Italy and Ireland in similar evaluations. Only the US
and Belgium have achieved a higher third-round FATF evaluation than the Cayman
Islands, the CIFSA chief concluded.
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