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| Gowon Bowe |
Tribune Business Editor
nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
The US government's call for greater scrutiny of The Bahamas will not have any "immediate or significant fallout" for this nation's key banking relationships, a senior banker said yesterday.
Gowon Bowe, the Clearing Bank Association's (CBA) chairman, told Tribune Business that the US Treasury Department's warning was unlikely to impact the established correspondent banking relationships that Bahamian commercial banks enjoy with their American counterparts because these are already subject to heightened due diligence.
He then called on The Bahamas to focus on what anti-money laundering standards will be "in the future", rather than in the present, as the best means for it to escape being constantly ambushed when international standard-setting bodies change the rules.
The CBA chairman spoke out after the US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in an October 31, 2018, advisory, warned American financial institutions to apply greater scrutiny and due diligence to commercial relationships and transactions involving The Bahamas where necessary. Read more >>