As she testified before the United States Congress last Wednesday, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley made a plea to policymakers to reexamine regulations on correspondent banking in the Caribbean made to counter terrorism and money laundering as they have made the region globally uncompetitive.
Mottley said the stiff regulations make it an especially arduous task for persons conducting wire transfers or simply trying to open a bank account.
“We are here because [of] the listing process that has taken place, whether through the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) or the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) or further as a result of actions taken for enhanced due diligence by those who take the listings from the FATF and OECD,” Mottley told the United States House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services.