Financial Crime World

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Fiji’s Fight Against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing: Progress, but Gaps Remain

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Suva, Fiji - The Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) has recently assessed Fiji’s efforts to improve its anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) regime. While Fiji has made significant progress, it still faces challenges in implementing several key recommendations.

Effective Financial Intelligence Unit

Fiji was commended for its effective and transparent Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which plays a crucial role in identifying and preventing money laundering and terrorist financing activities. The APG also noted improvements in data protection and inter-agency coordination.

Key Recommendations

Partial Compliance

Despite these advancements, Fiji remains only partially compliant with six of the 40 recommendations issued by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). These gaps include:

  • Targeted financial sanctions related to terrorism and terrorist financing.
  • Targeted financial sanctions related to proliferation.
  • Transparency and beneficial ownership of non-profit organizations.
  • Transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons.
  • Extradition.

European Union’s Blacklist

In a separate development, Fiji has been added to the European Union’s (EU) list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions. The EU blacklist is based on three criteria: transparency, fair tax competition, and commitment to OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting minimum standards.

Fiji was moved from the greylist to the blacklist due to its failure to abolish “harmful preferential tax regimes.” While the country has committed to comply with EU recommendations, it will be subject to ongoing monitoring by the EU.

Conclusion

The inclusion of Fiji on the EU’s blacklist highlights the importance of cooperation and information sharing between countries in combating money laundering and terrorist financing. It also underscores the need for Fiji to address its remaining AML/CFT gaps to prevent its financial system from being used for illicit activities.

References

  • Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG). 2019. Third Follow-Up Report. Mutual Evaluation of Fiji.
  • Council of the European Union. 2019. The EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes.
  • Fiji FIU. 2019. Annual Report 2018.

Disclaimer

All views in this text are those of the author and may differ from the U4 partner agencies’ policies.