BOJ publishes standards by which it will be judged
Published:Friday | May 1, 2020 | 12:21 AM
I N THE context of the Bank of Jamaica’s, BOJ’s, move towards being an independent central bank, it has published 33 service-level standards by which it will be assessed and which, it said, emphasises its commitment to accountability and transparency in its operations.
BOJ Senior Deputy Governor John Robinson says that the monitoring of the standards started two weeks ago, on April 14.
Most of the other measures existed before in various legislation and guidelines.
The standards, different elements of which are captured in the Banking Services Act, BOJ Operating Directions, the Bank of Jamaica Act, the Proceeds of Crime Act and FinTech Regulatory Sandbox Guidelines, describe the expected service level to be provided by the BOJ to the institutions it regulates.
However, how the bank is judged is contingent on the institutions providing complete information to facilitate processing of applications.
“Two of the bank’s main areas of strategic focus for the 2018 to 2020 Strategic Plan are to improve public confidence and, ultimately, improve stakeholder satisfaction,” said Robinson.
“To accomplish this, the bank is seeking to assess the level of stakeholder satisfaction through the establishment of service-level standards with specific reference to the approval processes for licences, and will monitor our performance against these set standards,” he said.
Compliance with the standards is one of the BOJ’s key performance indicators in its strategic plan and will be monitored both by its respective divisions and Strategic Planning and Project Management Centre, he said.
BOJ’s performance will be reviewed against the service standards and the results published.
Among the service-level standards for cambios and remittance service businesses, according to the standards published on BOJ’s website, are that applications for licences will be processed within 60 days following receipt of all relevant documents and, if approved, the licence will be issued within five business days.
Provision is also made for on-site inspection of each licensee to be conducted at least once per year, as well as for Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, CFATF, and UN Security Council advisories to be issued to licensees within two business days after legal review.
The CFATF is an organisation of 29 states of the Caribbean Basin, which have agreed to implement common countermeasures to money laundering through the AML/CFT framework, policed by central banks.
Provision is also made for cambios and remittance service businesses to be issued with non-compliance advisory in breach of foreign exchange position limit by noon of the business day following the violation.
The target for applications for the licensing of deposit-taking or banking institutions is 180 days; applications for the establishment of branch operations will be considered within 15 days subsequent to site inspection; and fit-and-proper assessments for board directorships will be made within 90 days.