The Isle of Man will remain on 'increased follow-up' as the MONEYVAL study uncovers new flaws

The MONEYVAL committee of the Council of Europe today urged for the Isle of Man's internal control measures to be expanded.

The Isle of Man will continue to be monitored by the organisation and is expected to report back in three years.

Following a mutual evaluation report adopted in December 2016, today's report is the fourth follow-up report on the Isle of Man.

As a result of the 2016 assessment, the island in the middle of the Irish Sea between the United Kingdom and Ireland was placed in MONEYVAL's "increased follow-up" protocol.

The Isle of Man's progress in correcting the lingering technical compliance concerns mentioned in the December 2016 report is examined in today's follow-up report.

MONEYVAL judged the Isle of Man to comply or mainly comply with 39 out of 40 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations, which are worldwide standards for combating money laundering and terrorism financing, in its previous follow-up report (September 2020).

According to MONEYVAL, the Isle of Man sustained moderate shortcomings after implementing only one item - Recommendation 23 - with which the Isle of Man was only "partially compliant" due to the following:

• There was no specific requirement in the AntiMoney Laundering (AML)/Counter-Terrorist Financing (CTF) or Gambling Codes in relation to having an independent audit function

• There was no specific requirement in the AML/CFT Code for groups to have groupwide programmes against money laundering or terrorist financing

Following that, the Isle of Man requested that MONEYVAL re-rate its technical compliance with Recommendation 23.

MONEYVAL notes in today's report that, while actions have been taken to improve compliance with Recommendation 23, gaps persist. As a result, the Isle of Man remains "partially compliant" with Recommendation 23.

By fLEXI tEAM