Bridgetown, Barbados, 22 November 2018 – As a result of The Bahamas’ progress in strengthening its framework to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing since their 2017 mutual evaluation, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) has re-rated the country on 13 of the 40 Recommendations.

The Bahamas has been in an enhanced follow-up process, following the adoption of the CFATF mutual evaluation, which assessed the effectiveness of The Bahamas’ anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) measures and the country’s compliance with the FATF Recommendations. In line with the FATF Procedures for mutual evaluations, The Bahamas has reported back to the CFATF on the progress it has made to strengthen its AML/CFT framework.

This report analyses The Bahamas’ progress in addressing the technical compliance deficiencies identified in the mutual evaluation report.   

To reflect this progress, the CFATF has re-rated The Bahamas on the following Recommendations:

1- Assessing risks and applying a risk-based approach from partially compliant to largely compliant

2– National cooperation and coordination from partially compliant to compliant

6 - Targeted financial sanctions related to terrorism and terrorist financing from non-compliant to partially compliant

10 – Customer due diligence from partially compliant to compliant

12 – Politically exposed persons from partially compliant to compliant

15 – New technologies from partially compliant to largely compliant

17 – Reliance on third parties from partially compliant to compliant

18 - Internal controls and foreign branches and subsidiaries from partially compliant to largely compliant

23 – DNFBPs: other measures – from partially compliant to largely compliant

25 – Transparency and beneficial ownership of legal arrangements - from partially compliant to largely compliant

30 – Responsibilities of law enforcement and investigative authorities from partially compliant to compliant

32 - Cash couriers   from partially compliant to largely compliant

35 - Sanctions from partially compliant to largely compliant

The report also looks at whether The Bahamas’ measures meet the requirements of FATF Recommendations that have changed since their 2017 mutual evaluation, taking into account any new measures since the mutual evaluation.

The CFATF agreed to maintain the largely compliant for Recommendation 5, the compliant rating for Recommendation 21 and partially compliant rating for Recommendations 7, 8, 19, 22, 26, 27, 28 and 33.  

See link for complete report -> The Bahamas 1st Follow up Report