BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, The Barbados government says the decision by the European Union to remove the island from its list of high-risk third countries significantly improves the environment for Barbadian investors doing business in Europe.
“This has been a long time in coming. The fact is that we should have been removed from this list a year ago, having been taken off the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list since early last year. At that time, we were automatically removed from the UK blocklist,” Attorney General, Dale Marshall said in a statement, confirming the required delegated legislation was published in the EU’s Official Journal, giving effect to the decision.
Barbados will be officially removed from the blocklist on August 5.
“The practical effect of now being removed from this blocklist is that EU financial institutions no longer need to conduct enhanced due diligence on parties and transactions from Barbados,” he said.
“The need to do enhanced due diligence caused many EU banks to refuse to do business with Barbadian companies, and this has hampered not only personal transactions but also hurt our ability to do business with EU entities. Some companies have had to cease operations in Barbados because we have been on the blocklist,” he added.
\Marshall said that the removal from the EU list had been delayed because some EU members objected to the removal of other jurisdictions from the list, and under their “all or nothing” procedures, no other country could be removed.
He stated that Barbados has worked “long and hard” to meet the global standards set by the FATF, which he described as “a source of pride.”
“This administration has made an extraordinary investment in our institutions, established and staffed new entities, invested in training, updated our laws, and adopted new norms, all to make sure that Barbados can fight money laundering and the financing of terrorism,” Marshall said.
“We can now enjoy some stability and predictability in our commercial activity with businesses and individuals within the EU member states, and that benefits all Barbadians.” The Association of Global Business (BIBA) has also welcomed the EU’s decision.
“Following Barbados’ removal from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list last February, this action by the European Commission (EC) is further evidence that the island does not have strategic deficiencies in its systems set up to fight money laundering and terrorist financing,” said BIBA’s executive director, Carmel Haynes.
“While we acknowledge that increased compliance can sometimes be an additional burden and cost to clients and service providers alike, Barbados unfortunately has to continue to fight against the stigma of being labelled by many overseas as a highrisk, lightly regulated financial centre because of our geographic location,” Haynes said,, suggestng however hat there must be a balance.
“We are hopeful that with both the FATF and the EC having endorsed the actions that the island is taking to protect the global financial system, we will see some further easing in the enhanced due diligence by international financial institutions, which continue to cause inordinate delays in the execution of some critical transactions.
“Reductions in the [difficulty] and cost of doing business within the financial services industry would be a welcome result of these international developments and would go far towards propelling Barbados forward as a global business hub.”
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