KINGSTON, Jamaica — ** The European Parliament has endorsed the Commission’s 10 June 2025 Delegated Regulation removing Jamaica from the European Union’s roster of high-risk third countries for anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing (AML/CFT) shortcomings. The vote, taken in Brussels on 9 July 2025, marks the island’s complete rehabilitation after its June 2024 exit from the FATF “grey list.”
“This decision confirms that our reforms are not only on paper but trusted internationally,” Foreign Affairs Minister Senator Kamina Johnson Smith told MEPs via video link, hailing the result as “a catalytic moment for growth.”
What the Delisting Actually Means
| Immediate Impact | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| No more EU-mandated “enhanced due diligence.” | Banks in Europe can treat Jamaican counterparties as standard-risk clients, lowering compliance costs. |
| Cheaper cross-border financing. | Trade-finance specialists expect spreads on euro-denominated loans to fall by 25–50 bps. |
| Investor signal boost. | A clean AML/CFT bill of health is often a prerequisite for FDI and sovereign-credit upgrades. |
How Jamaica Got Off the List
- Legislative overhaul (2020-2023) – Amendments to the Proceeds of Crime Act, new ultimate-beneficial-ownership registry, and risk-based supervisory manual.
- Institutional firepower (2023-2024) – Doubling staff at the Financial Investigations Division and rolling out a real-time suspicious-transaction-reporting (STR) portal.
- External validation (June 2024) – FATF Plenary congratulates Kingston for “significant progress,” removing it from increased monitoring.
- Diplomatic push (2024-2025) – Coordinated lobbying by Jamaica and Barbados inside CARICOM and in Brussels culminates in last week’s vote.
The Vigilance Clause
European regulators will keep Jamaica under post-observation review; any back-sliding could trigger a rapid relist. Kingston has pledged to:
- Finalise a digital-assets supervision framework by Q1 2026.
- Publish quarterly STR statistics to prove ongoing enforcement.
- Launch a public-private partnership for AML analytics using AI by year-end.
“Getting delisted is hard; staying delisted is harder,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness cautioned, urging the financial sector to “treat today not as a finish line but as a compliance relaunch.”
