Turks and Caicos Islands Makes Significant Progress in Fighting Financial Crime

Improved Framework for Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

The Turks and Caicos Islands has seen significant improvements in its framework for tackling financial crime, with a major boost to its efforts in combating money laundering and terrorist financing. The Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) has re-rated the country on two key recommendations following a review of its progress.

Progress Since 2020 Mutual Evaluation

Since its 2020 mutual evaluation, the Turks and Caicos Islands has been working to strengthen its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) measures in line with international standards. As part of this effort, the country submitted a report to the CFATF outlining the steps it had taken to address technical compliance deficiencies identified during the mutual evaluation.

Key Recommendations Improvements

According to the CFATF’s assessment, the Turks and Caicos Islands has made significant progress in addressing these issues, resulting in improved ratings on two key recommendations:

• Recommendation 13: Correspondent Banking: The country has moved from “partially compliant” to “largely compliant”, reflecting its efforts to strengthen correspondent banking relationships.
• Recommendation 28: Regulation and Supervision of DNFBPs: The Turks and Caicos Islands has improved its rating from “partially compliant” to “compliant”, demonstrating its ability to effectively regulate and supervise designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs).

Commitment to Effective AML/CFT Measures

These improvements reflect the Turks and Caicos Islands’ commitment to implementing effective AML/CFT measures, said officials. The country’s progress in this area has been acknowledged by the CFATF, which has now re-rated the Turks and Caicos Islands as Compliant or Largely Compliant with 37 out of the 40 FATF Recommendations.

Government Recognition

The government of the Turks and Caicos Islands welcomed the recognition of its efforts to strengthen its AML/CFT framework. “We are pleased that our hard work and commitment to implementing effective AML/CFT measures have been recognized by the CFATF,” said a spokesperson for the government. “This is an important step forward in our fight against financial crime, and we will continue to work towards ensuring that our country remains at the forefront of international standards.”