 The National Anti-Money Laundering Oversight Committee, NAMLOC, presented certificates of participation to stakeholders involved in reviewing the recent amendments to St. Lucia's Anti-Money Laundering, Terrorism and Proliferation Financing legislation. These amendments are critical to St. Lucia's application for re-rating to be removed from enhanced follow-up. One piece of legislation which will impact several service providers is the Virtual Assets Business Act which was recently passed in December 2022. Natalie DiSosi, Executive Director of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority, FSRA, explained that a Virtual Asset is a digital representation of value that can be traded or used for payment or investment. Most Virtual Assets that you would have heard of would be like crypto currencies or virtual currencies such as Bitcoin or Litecoin and today it is reported that over 20,000 of those are in circulation. She said a Virtual Asset cannot be equated to a fiat currency. What do I mean by that? A fiat currency is a legal tender issued by a government while a cryptocurrency or a virtual currency is backed by a blockchain technology that is not, I would say, overseen or overviewed by any central authority. DiSosi added that blockchain technology has the ability to allow the transfer of value around the world quickly and efficiently with law enforcement authorities reporting that illicit traders are using such technology to trade in cyberspace to conduct transfers between multiple accounts in multiple jurisdictions using virtual identities where the owner of the asset isn't always known. So you can understand how difficult it is for law enforcement to trace a transaction and due to that emerging risk the financial action task force which you have heard is called FETF have issued recommendations to deal with such emerging risks and they have issued recommendations 15 out of the 40 recommendations that have been issued by the financial action task force. These recommendations provide guidance to national authorities such as NAMLOK, Virtual Asset Providers, Financial Entities and the like to better understand the risks and potential exposure in relation to money laundering, terrorists and proliferation financing. It calls for institutions to conduct effective and continuous customer due diligence. That Virtual Asset Business Act would provide for anyone wanting to provide Virtual Asset Business from or within St. Lucia would have to be licensed. That means they would have to submit an application to the financial services regulatory authority to be approved as a Virtual Asset Service Provider. The Executive Director stated that NAMLOK is aware that Virtual Assets are a burning issue for many stakeholders and the intent of the legislation is not to stifle investment opportunities. We as Prudential Regulator and even as the money laundering or terrorist financing regulators such as the Financial Intelligence Authority we understand that the objective is not to stifle the growth of Virtual Asset but rather to make sure that we remain compliant. A number of key stakeholders have volunteered their services to NAMLOK to address gaps in St. Lucia's anti-money laundering legislation and the ongoing national risk assessment. For the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, Glenn Simon reporting.