Mauritius is a founder member of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) which assesses the level of compliance of its 18 members with the FATF recommendations. Since 2013, this assessment considers compliance in terms of technical compliance (the legislative framework) and the level of effectiveness of a member’s AML/CFT measures.
Consequently Mauritius underwent a second round of evaluation by ESAAMLG under the FATF’s 2013 methodology. ESAAMLG thus assessed Mauritius’ AML/CFT legal framework but also its level of effectiveness. The Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) of Mauritius was published on 21 September 2018.
The MER highlighted several weaknesses in the Mauritian AML/CFT framework. To address these, Mauritius made the commitment to urgently make several amendments. In addition to several changes brought to the Financial Intelligence and Anti Money Laundering Act 2002 (FIAMLA), new Regulations namely the Financial Intelligence and Anti Money Laundering Regulations 2018, was promulgated effective as from 01 October 2018, to address the FATF requirements regarding Customer Due Diligence, Politically Exposed Persons, Correspondent Banking, Money or Value Transfer Services, New Technologies, Wire Transfers, Reliance on Third Parties, and Internal Control, Foreign Branches and Subsidiaries, amongst others.
Additionally, in May 2019 Mauritius also passed new legislation, namely the United Sanctions (Financial Prohibitions, Arms Embargo and Travel Ban) Act 2019 and made further amendments to the FIAMLA to align its AML/CFT regulatory framework with the FATF standards.
In light of the above efforts, Mauritius has submitted two applications for technical compliance re-rating to the ESAAMLG. These were considered at the latter’s April 2019 and September 2019 meetings. Both applications have been successful, and as at date, Mauritius has been re rated as Compliant or Largely Compliant on 35 of the 40 FATF Recommendations.
The consolidated technical compliance ratings may be summarized as follows :
Recommendation |
Consolidated rating
following the first and Second technical compliance Re-ratings |
R.1 |
Assessing Risks and applying a Risk-Based Approach |
C |
R.2 |
National Cooperation and Coordination |
C |
R.3 |
Money laundering offence |
C |
R.4 |
Confiscation and provisional measures |
C |
R.5 |
Terrorist financing offence |
C |
R.6 |
Targeted financial sanctions related to terrorism and terrorist financing |
C |
R.7 |
Targeted financial sanctions related to proliferation |
C |
R.8 |
Non-profit organisations |
NC |
R.9 |
Financial institution secrecy laws |
C |
R.10 |
Customer due diligence |
C |
R.11 |
Record-keeping |
LC |
R.12 |
Politically exposed persons |
C |
R.13 |
Correspondent banking |
C |
R.14 |
Money or value transfer services |
C |
R.15 |
New technologies |
C |
R.16 |
Wire transfers |
C |
R.17 |
Reliance on third parties |
C |
R.18 |
Internal controls and foreign branches and subsidiaries |
C |
R.19 |
Higher-risk countries |
C |
R.20 |
Reporting of suspicious transaction |
C |
R.21 |
Tipping-off and confidentiality |
C |
R.22 |
DNFBPs: Customer due diligence |
C |
R.23 |
DNFBPs: Other measures |
C |
R.24 |
Transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons |
PC |
R.25 |
Transparency and beneficial ownership of legal arrangements |
LC |
R.26 |
Regulation and supervision of financial institutions |
PC |
R.27 |
Powers of supervisors |
C |
R.28 |
Regulation and supervision of DNFBPs |
LC |
R.29 |
Financial intelligence units |
C |
R.30 |
Responsibilities of law enforcement and investigative authorities |
C |
R.31 |
Powers of law enforcement and investigative authorities |
C |
R.32 |
Cash Couriers |
PC |
R.33 |
Statistics |
PC |
R.34 |
Guidance and feedback |
LC |
R.35 |
Sanctions |
C |
R.36 |
International instruments |
LC |
R.37 |
Mutual legal assistance |
LC |
R.38 |
Mutual legal assistance : freezing and confiscation |
LC |
R.39 |
Extradition |
LC |
R.40 |
Other forms of international cooperation |
LC |
Efforts are still ongoing to address the 5 outstanding Recommendations. Additionally, to enhance the level of effectiveness of our AML/CFT regime, now a key component of the FATF methodology, several sub committees have been established to conduct focused work on each of the 11 FATF Immediate Outcomes.
The 11 sub committees are the following and are each composed of representatives of relevant institutions.
IO.1 |
Risk, policy and coordination |
IO.2 |
International cooperation |
IO.3 |
Supervision |
IO.4 |
Preventive measures |
IO.5 |
Legal persons and arrangements |
IO.6 |
Financial Intelligence |
IO.7 |
ML investigation & prosecution |
IO.8 |
Confiscation |
IO.9 |
TF investigation & prosecution |
IO.10 |
TF preventive measures & financial sanctions |
IO.11 |
PF financial sanctions |