Final FATF onsite visit key to Cayman’s ‘de-listing’
(CNS): Local officials remain hopeful that the Cayman Islands will be removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list during the upcoming FATF Plenary in October after a final visit by FATF officials last week. The onsite visit by a delegation from the Americas Joint Group, a sub-working group of the FATF’s International Co-Operation Review Group (ICRG), was described as a significant milestone in the jurisdiction’s efforts to effectively and sustainably combat financial crime.
The Joint Group completed a comprehensive review of the final three recommended actions of the FATF’s action plan for Cayman. The financial services ministry said in a press release that the delegation engaged in discussions with Cayman Islands Government officials, regulatory authorities and private sector entities, gaining valuable insights into the country’s resolute AML/CFT framework, the rules that underpin it and the practices deployed to operate it effectively.
Minister André Ebanks said the visit was a consequential step in the final stage of the process for the Cayman Islands to be removed from the FATF grey list.
“We appreciate the FATF authorising the visit and Joint Group members travelling to the Cayman Islands to verify our progress and learn more about our country and its financial services system,” he said. “We applaud the collaborative efforts of our local stakeholders who took part in organising and participating in the visit, including representatives from the private sector. Their collective commitment and conduct were instrumental in having an efficient and compelling visit.”
The Joint Group will now prepare an onsite visit report, which will be presented at the upcoming FATF Plenary next month. At that point, officials here will receive confirmation as to whether or not Cayman will be removed from the grey list.
As well as meeting the minister and members of the private sector while they were here, the delegation met with a number of senior officials, including Governor Jane Owen, Premier Wayne Panton, Deputy Governor Franz Manderson, Commissioner of Police Derek Byrne and Attorney General Samuel Bulgin.
Bulgin said, “The Cayman Islands remains dedicated to upholding the integrity of its financial services system and will continue to strengthen its AML/CFT framework to safeguard against illicit activities. We appreciate the FATF delegation’s thorough review process. We will continue to engage with international partners to guarantee a healthy and safe global financial services system.”
While Cayman has ticked many boxes in its efforts to stay off or be removed from various lists over the years, the most recent problem causing the jurisdiction to be grey-listed by FATF is the lack of successful prosecutions by the authorities of serious financial crime.
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Category: Business, Financial Services
So exactly what problems for Cayman has the grey listing caused? Has financial services fled the island? Has tourism stopped? Any repercussions? No. So what is the big fuss about? It’s all political grand standing overseas and some weird local egos.
And by the way, get your head out of the bubble people. Stop comparing Cayman to the United States or Europe and say its not fair. Comparatively there is no real economy here. It’s not a level playing field because it shouldn’t be and can’t be. Just get used to it. And stop pretending there is no money laundering, corruption or other illegal activities going on here. Just makes you look stupid.
Have you tried opening any finance related accounts within Europe? Next to impossible right now, from Cayman.
My bank in UK closed my account, and wouldn’t tell me why, because they said they didn’t have to..!
Assertions about illegality reflect people’s ignorance. Dan Neidle, the guy who exposed Nadhim Zahawi’s tax-dodging, concisely summarised the hypocrisy of onshore jurisdictions here:
“Defining a “tax haven” is hard. And inevitably ends up very subjective and highly political (in a bad way).
The Fair Tax people have a report out today. https://lnkd.in/evDPeW7q
They say, perfectly reasonably, that it’s a characteristic of tax havens to have no public reporting of beneficial ownership.
But what’s the biggest block to public beneficial ownership reporting at the moment?
The EU.
A truly impressive CJEU judgment from last year said public registers of beneficial ownership were contrary to EU law. https://lnkd.in/eypp62GA
And what’s the most significant country with no public beneficial ownership reporting AND no public financial reporting of any kind for most private companies?
The US.
(In 2024, the US will finally introduce beneficial ownership reporting – but only to the US Treasury)
So it’s understandable why Bermuda, Jersey etc think it’s unfair that they get labelled as “tax havens” and the US and EU do not.
The EU exercise of drawing up a supposedly objective “blacklist” was farcical. It ended up requiring some very poor countries – that weren’t realistically tax havens at all – to spend their scarce resources complying with EU demands.
Naturally, the EU wouldn’t dare blacklist the US.
And Malta – which has perhaps the worst tax reputation in the developed world – couldn’t be blacklisted because it was an EU member.
All very principled.
I tend to take a simpler approach: if you don’t tax foreign income/gains then you’re a tax haven.
That makes Bermuda, Jersey etc a tax haven. But also Singapore. And – if you’re a non-dom – the UK.
I urge you to join my boycott of all UK products.”
Source: LinkedIn, June 2023, https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danneidle_tax-haven-briefing-june-2023pdf-activity-7074772597246173184-7x4B/
See also: https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/investigations – Neidle is no apologist for tax evaders.
Lol
They need to allow Caymanians full access to, PayPal, eBay, stock account’s and Amazon to allow online trading and receive payments into our bank accounts.
obvious question…but why don’t we just adopt the rules and regulation to get us off the grey list…like what other countries have done?
what are we hiding?
We have done that. The only point outstanding was a successful court case and the people we charged kept pleading guilty before court so didn’t count.
05/09/2023 at 8:42 am – Clearly, you do not work in Cayman’s financial industry. If you did, you would know that we are one of the most highly regulated jurisdictions in the world. More so than the US and UK.
Black lists and grey lists are a way for larger countries to eliminate the competition. Period.
caymanan island ‘financial services’ are a tax evasion and money laundering operation.
lets all get honest about what we do here….then we can start having a debate.
I have worked in the finance industry for more than 20 years and here and that is definitely NOT what we do.
ignorance is bliss………..
Once you can actually spell the name of the place you purport to be in (“what we do here”), perhaps you may have a view worth acknowledging.
8:41 You are an ignorant fool.
“caymanan island”…
Nothing like a good boondoggle to get you taken off a list. Who paying?
don’t tell them about our ‘strange’ hospital projects….
Or take them to dine at our many empty restaurants.
or our office blocks filled with companies but no employees….
On restaurants, wouldn’t it be interesting for DCI to do some audits on a select “group” to compare cash receipts against supplies purchased! Now that would show some actual money laundering investigations.
Hopefully, we get to ascend to the pinnacle pole position shared by Nicaragua and Pakistan.
Just a polite reminder , it was Pakistan that allowed Osama Bin Laden to reside within its borders and conduct further terrorism abroad , in the years after 9/ 11.
Cayman should treat banking the way it did Covid. Rigorous process for new funds coming in. Once in free to move around locally!
Ah yes, the never ending “one last thing”.
It will make no difference. They’ve got it in for us.
and we keep on trying to hide what our ‘financial services’ really do……zzzzzzz
These threads on CNS always bring out the people who tried and failed to get into finance.