In 2020, Jamaica was added to both the FATF Grey list (or Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring) and the European Commission’s list of high-risk third countries with regards to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT).

Since then, Jamaica has made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and CFATF to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime. Whilst the country has taken 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 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, in order to evaluate the current state of play and the activities delivered so far by the EU Global Facility on AML/CFT to Jamaican counterparts.

Since then, the training and activities conducted by the EU Global Facility on AML/CFT have sought 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 to be removed from the list.