Getting ready for the spotlight in the Cayman Islands: Inspections and assessments are upcoming
The RFP and evaluation focus
The Cayman Islands Government has published an RFP (reference PPC-2026-CIMA-046-RFP) for professional services to support CIMA’s readiness for the CFATF’s evaluation. The evaluation will focus heavily on the effectiveness of the jurisdiction’s AML/CFT/CPF and targeted financial sanctions framework, including beneficial ownership and virtual asset services. CIMA has notes that the 5th round will place greater emphasis on effectiveness, risk and context, and the DNFBPs and financial services sectors will be assessed separately.
According to the Cayman Independent newspaper, citing clarification responses published on the procurement portal, the successful bidder would be required to prepare standalone risk assessments for each CIMA-regulated sector, including banking, insurance, securities, mutual fund administration, money services business, trust and corporate services providers, and virtual asset service providers. The exercise is intended to go beyond updating existing assessments and to reflect changes in FATF standards and evolving financial crime risks.
Alignment with the National Risk Assessment
The RFP is closely aligned with the Cayman Islands’ 2025 – 2026 National Risk Assessment (NRA), a one-year initiative to strengthen the AML/CFT/CPF framework ahead of the 2027 evaluation. The NRA is coordinated by the Office for Strategic Action on Illicit Finance, with participation from Government agencies, regulators and private-sector stakeholders.
Its objective includes identifying current and emerging ML/TF/PF threats and vulnerabilities, supporting risk-based policy development, maintaining alignment with FATF Recommendations, and demonstrating the Cayman Islands’ commitment to transparency and global cooperation. CIMA’s 2024-2027 Strategic Plan identifies support for a positive FATF assessment as a strategic objective.
What this means for regulated entities
The practical message is that evidential readiness is likely to be as important as formal compliance. CIMA has encouraged financial service providers to maintain data, statistics and case studies covering up to five years before the onsite inspection, and to be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of their AML/CFT/CPF and sanctions controls.
CIMA has also highlighted the need for entity-wide proliferation financing risk assessments, accurate beneficial ownership information, staff training and proactive engagement with the NRA process.
Regulated entities should accordingly anticipate continued regulatory focus on risk assessments, beneficial ownership transparency, sanctions controls, proliferation financing risk and documented remediation of compliance weakness.
The RFP can be found here.
More information on the 2025–2026 National Risk Assessment Factsheet here and CIMA’s blog here.
CIMA’s Strategic plan 2024-2027 can be accessed here and the press release here.
