The Cook Islands are a remote islands chain in the Pacific Oceanto the East of Australia. The Cook Islands became a British colony in 1881 to avoid becoming a French Colony. In 1965, as the British Empire continued to dissolve, the Cook Islands ceased to be a British colony and became a self-governing area in association with thesovereign state of New Zealand. It needs to be clear that the Cook Islands are not part of New Zealand. Instead, they are essentially a sovereign state that is a protectorate of New Zealand. While the Cook Islands use the New Zealand Dollar as the official currency, the Cook Islands pass their own laws through their own parliament, the government sets its own policies and the islands regulate their own offshore financial center.
Regulatory oversight of banks conducting business in the Cook Islands is vested in the Financial Supervisory Commission of TheCook Islands (www.fsc.gov.ck ).
Banks, as in many other offshore financial centers, are licensed in two categories. The first of the categories is licensed to conduct business in the islands, specifically of a domestic nature. The other category of banks is licensed to conduct international business dealings such as accepting offshore deposits andtrust services. Currently, there are three licensed domestic banks andfive internationally licensed banks in the Cook Islands. These banks can be found on the website of the Financial Supervisory Commission website at https://www.fsc.gov.ck/cookIslandsFscApp/content/business-contacts/banks. The majority of the banks are major Australian banks conducting offshore banking services.The Cook Islands were listed as a Non-Cooperative Country or Territory by the FATF in 2000. However, due to the countries implementations of anti-money laundering policies as well as strict customer identification and record keeping practices, the Cook Islands were removed from the NCCT list in 2005.
Comments