In June 2024, Jamaica was officially removed from the FATF Grey list (or Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring) following its listing in 2020.
As of today, it remains on the European Commission’s list of high-risk third countries with regards to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT).
Following its listing, Jamaica has made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and CFATF to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime. The country has taken a number of steps towards improving its AML/CFT regime, including by ensuring that its definition of beneficial ownership is in line with the FATF Standards. The FATF had noted that “Jamaica should continue to work on implementing its action plan to address its strategic deficiencies, including by: (1) ensuring adequate, risk-based supervision in all DNFBP sectors; and (2) demonstrating that accurate and up-to-date basic and beneficial ownership information is available on a timely basis to competent authorities, and effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions are applied.”
In March 2022, the EU Global Facility conducted a scoping mission to the Caribbean island to evaluate the current state of play and the technical assistance activities that could be further delivered to Jamaican counterparts. The EU Global Facility on AML/CFT has been delivering a number of training and activities aimed to help Jamaica rectify the strategic deficiencies in its national anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing framework and strengthen its capacities in this regard.