FATF Gives St Vincent And The Grenadines Clean Bill Of Health

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

24 June 2003

The Eastern Caribbean jurisdiction of St Vincent and the Grenadines was delighted to announce its removal from the FATF's 'blacklist' of Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCTs) last week, following the multilateral body's plenary meeting in Berlin.

In its most recent Implementation Progress Report on St Vincent and the Grenadines, the FATF praised the 'substantial' amount of anti-money laundering training provided to financial institutions, and observed that:

'Relationships between and among the Offshore Financial Authority, the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, other financial regulators, police, other government entities, as well as the private financial services sector appears to be excellent and working well.'

The jurisdiction's Prime Minister, Dr the Hon. Ralph E. Gonsalves welcomed Friday's FATF decision, announcing that:

'St Vincent and the Grenadines is now poised to take the international financial services sector into a new era, now that we have been given a clean bill of health by the FATF.' He continued:

'While we will continue to rigorously enforce our anti-money laundering regime, we will also now pay more attention to ensuring that this sector continues to contribute to the development of the national economy.'

The updated list of NCCTs contains: the Cook Islands, Egypt, Guatemala, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nauru, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Ukraine.

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