Jamaica removed from FATF's grey list

Jamaica has been removed from the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) 'grey list' of countries that are assessed as having deficiencies in their Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regimes.

The announcement was made in a media release on Friday by Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr Nigel Clarke, who led a Jamaican delegation to the FATF meetings in Singapore this week.

He said the decision to remove Jamaica from the list was taken at FATF's plenary on Friday and was a significant achievement for the country.

Jamaica was placed on the grey list in February 2020, signalling to international financial and other institutions to engage in enhanced due diligence when doing transactions with entities and individuals from the country. This makes transacting with FATF grey listed countries more expensive. 

In the aftermath of the FATF grey listing, the Government agreed to a 13-point action plan with FATF to address Jamaica's AML/CFT deficiencies.

In its statement on the conclusion of the Plenary in Singapore, FATF welcomed “Jamaica's significant progress in improving its AML/CFT regime”.

The FATF's release further stated that “Jamaica strengthened the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime to meet the commitments in its action plan regarding the strategic deficiencies that FATF identified in February 2020”.

As such, FATF concluded that Jamaica is “no longer subject to FATF's increased monitoring process.”

However, Clarke said "while we celebrate this milestone achievement, we have to look ahead to ensure we never again give the global standard setter for AML/CFT/CPT matters reason to grey list Jamaica."

As such, Jamaica is now preparing for the globally applicable fifth round of AML/CFT/CPT mutual evaluations scheduled to take place in mid-2026.

He said before end of 2025, Jamaica will therefore need to amend or introduce new laws to regulate virtual assets and virtual asset providers, make the registration of non-profit organisations mandatory and promulgate regulations that address certain targeted financial sanctions related to proliferation.

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