The Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) welcomes the recent assessment by the Council of Europe's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) monitor MONEYVAL.
The Alderney Gambling Control Commission was one of two AML/CFT supervisors- the other being the Guernsey Financial Services Commission- interviewed by MONEYVAL's team of assessors when they visited Guernsey in April 2024, and their report confirms the Bailiwick's robust approach to counter money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing.
MONEYVAL's 363-page report places the Bailiwick of Guernsey and its Alderney gambling regulator in the top tier for financial compliance, and found no substantial fault with gambling regulation nor with wider financial regulation in the Bailiwick of Guernsey.
Its executive summary praised the two AML regulators for their “very good understanding of [AML/CTF] threats and vulnerabilities to which the supervised sectors are exposed”. Further the report found their outreach work with the private sector “abundant and remarkable”, with no fundamental improvements required.
“MONEYVAL confirmed that the Bailiwick has a very full and very contemporary set of regulations relating to AML, CFT and proliferation financing and these are very well communicated by its agencies and well understood by the public sector,” AGCC Chairman Lord Richard Faulkner said.
Faulkner said the result, “rates very highly in any international comparison that can be drawn, particularly as this was the final evaluation in the [Europe-wide] fifth round, and expectations have been raised during that process”.
Only four countries worldwide have scored as highly with regards to risk understanding and the prevention of terrorist financing, and only the UK and the United States rank as highly in terms of sanction implementation.
Andrew Gellatly, executive director of the AGCC, noted that Alderney's gambling regulator, now in its 25th year of operation, “has built a strong group of mature licensees and a sophisticated ecosystem of expertise in the Bailiwick that allows it to remain among the top tier of online gambling regulators globally”.
“The AGCC is a bespoke supervisor of online gambling, with a relatively small number of licensees, and MONEYVAL acknowledged the robust and effective controls in place for our reporting entities,” said Gellatly.
The full Mutual Evaluation Report can be found here, and more information can be found on the States of Guernsey website.