Bahamas Central Bank Issues New Anti-Money Laundering Guidelines

by Amanda Banks, for LawandTax-News.com, London

10 May 2005

The Central Bank of the Bahamas has announced the release of new Guidelines on the Prevention and Detection of Money Laundering for Licensees for industry consultation.

The amendments made in December 2003 to the Financial Transactions Reporting Act, 2000 and the Financial Transactions Reporting Regulations, 2000, had the effect of facilitating a risk-based approach to customer due diligence on the part of financial sector institutions. Consequently, the anti-money laundering guidelines issued to licensees of the Central Bank by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) required revision in line with the above statutory amendments.

These draft Guidelines seek to address customer due diligence issues arising in respect of, inter alia, foundations, investment funds, segregated accounts companies, financial and corporate service providers, as well as the treatment of accounts in existence prior to 29th December, 2000. The draft Guidelines do not address suspicious transactions reporting which is to be addressed by the FIU.

The objective of these Guidelines is to provide assistance to licensees in determining appropriate measures for verifying customer identity. The Guidelines set out those procedures and practices which the Central Bank considers to be "best practice" for verifying customer identity.

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