Online shopping is getting a little bit easier for Jamaicans.

So you may remember a few months ago I told you about Jamaica being on the FATF grey list.

FATF stands for Financial Action Task Force.  They’re the global watchdog for money laundering and terrorist financing.  And they had us on a list of countries that weren’t doing enough to combat these illicit activities.

That made it harder for us to do business globally.  You couldn’t even use certain Jamaican credit or debit cards online. The merchants weren’t accepting them.

Well after four years of monitoring, Jamaica is officially off FATF’s grey list, and online shoppers have already started seeing some progress.

So Jamaica had been on the List since 2020.  And  last year, FATF said if we don’t get it together, they’re gonna move us to the Blacklist, which would mean many places would be banned from doing business with us.

FATF gave us a list of around 40 things to fix. And after four years, we’ve finally gotten the thumbs up.

So what does that mean for the country now?  And what does it mean for you and your money? 

Well, being on the Grey List signalled to other countries and large companies that doing business with Jamaica was risky.  So even though Jamaica was still making deals, it was just more expensive.

Now, Jamaica has more bargaining power because we’re internationally recognised as FATF compliant. 

And I’m sure the online shoppers have started to see the difference already. Jamaica-based credit and debit cards are being accepted on more merchant websites. So doing business online is already getting easier.

With this removal, more opportunities and partnerships will likely come up for local businesses and the government, so the potential economic benefit is huge.

And that’s the bottom line.