Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit, Shelley Nicholls-Hunte, addressing the participants at yesterday's conference.
The draft Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) guidelines for several sectors are expected to be disseminated to the various stakeholders by the end of this week.
Word of this has come from Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Anti-Money Laundering Authority, Shelley Nicholls-Hunte, who disclosed that these guidelines for dealers of precious metals and precious stones, real estate agents, accountants and attorneys were approved by the Board only this Tuesday.
She was speaking on day two of the Institute of Internal Auditors Barbados Chapter’s conference at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, on the topic “The Importance of Filing Suspicious Activity Reports with the FIU”.
Speaking with The Barbados Advocate after her session, Nicholls-Hunte indicated that these stakeholders will have at least one month to comment on the draft guidelines, as her office is hoping to have them in place by December.
“We are sending out the draft guidelines for public consultation and we would expect the relevant sectors to read the documents and give feedback in short order. So when we send out the information we will let them know as to how much time they have to get back to us,” she said.
Her comments came as she indicated that the FIU is forwarding the guidelines to the representative bodies of the respective professions including the Barbados Bar Association and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados and the Barbados Estate Agents and Valuers Association. But she noted that in the case of the dealers of precious metals and precious stones, they will disseminate the information to a number of individual companies, as that sector does not have a representative body with which the FIU can interface.
The FIU Director added, “Even although the membership in those other associations may not be mandatory, at least there is a point of contact that represents their interest and through which persons’ concerns can be feed. But there is no such point of contact for the dealers of precious metals and precious stones. But, we have had previous sessions with the dealers of precious metals and precious stones in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and we have somewhat of a listing of those entities so they will each receive a copy.”
With that in mind, the FIU Director reiterated her call in June of this year, for local dealers of precious stones and precious metals to unite under an umbrella body through which they can liaise with entities such as the FIU. She said then that such an entity was needed to help reduce the threats and vulnerabilities associated with money laundering and terrorism financing which could affect that sector and Barbados’ reputation as a pristine jurisdiction. (JRT)
Section: