The Anguilla Community College is helping to protect the island’s vital financial services industry from a number of negative factors that can hinder its development unless careful action is taken. To that end, the College entered its first partnership with KAW Management Services Ltd of Antigua to conduct a two-day course in Anguilla entitled “Assessing Your Institution’s Compliance Score Sheet in this new Era”.
The course, in which the participants were drawn from various business and financial institutions in the public and private sectors, was held on January 30 and 31 at the Community College.
“As you are aware, the United States Government has come down really heavily on money-laundering in the Caribbean and has put in place a number of mechanisms for reporting money-laundering,” Professor Delroy Louden, President of the Community College, told The Anguillian. “We have a financial services industry in Anguilla which is precious to us, and so this course is really to address the needs of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and at the same time risk management. It is also going to look at money laundering, anti-fraud risks and operational management.
“The aim is for those persons in the field to know what the requirements to meet are, and what to look out for to protect themselves against money-laundering which is becoming very popular in the Caribbean region. At the same time, we want people who are marketing their products in Anguilla to be aware that Anguilla wants to make sure it is in compliance with all the rules and regulations of the financial services jurisdiction.
“We see this as an opportunity for the financial services industry to work with the Anguilla Community College to develop these programmes. The participants are going to get ten credits for the course which will allow them to fit in with the anti-money-laundering requirements to get a Certified Anti-Money-Laundering Specialist (CAMS) certification. It also provides another certification – Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) – so that people can be up-to-date in their skills. This is just one of many courses in which the College is engaged to meet the human resources needs of Anguilla, and we can do this with partnerships.”
The Community College’s new partnership with KAW Management Services Ltd was established through Mr Kem Warner, the firm’s Managing Director, who conducted the course. He is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist, a Certified Fraud Examiner and has a FICB banking designation. His company was founded in 2009 and offers consultancy services in Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Fraud, Risk and Operations Management and Training.
The course dealt with the following subject areas: the new requirements of the Revised Financial Action Task Force Recommendations relating to Risk Based Assessment; Tax Crime as a Predicate Offense for Money-Laundering; How to design and build an Anti-Money Laundering programme for financial institutions; Navigating the choppy waters of compliance; the enemy within; understanding and knowing your employees; warning signs of workplace fraud; and fraud detection and prevention.
