The Isle of Man has gone straight from a general election to a crucial inspection by MoneyVal - the outcomes for both being potentially pivotal to the island’s future.

Formal interviews by the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering body with industry representatives, regulators and government agencies are scheduled got underway on Monday, (September 28) and will continue to October 9.

The sixth-round evaluation requires the island to provide substantial evidence of the effectiveness of its frameworks to combat financial crime.

MoneyVal evaluators have the power to ‘grey list’ jurisdictions. This would negatively impact the island’s finances and cause significant reputational damage.

Addressing an event at the Claremont Hotel organised by the Chamber of Commerce 12 months ago, head of the Financial Service Authority (FSA) Bettina Roth said one jurisdiction that had been listed had estimated a loss to its economy of £38bn, 11% of its GDP.

And she said the work involved in removing the Isle of Man from the grey list would be even more onerous, with challenging remediation targets.

The MoneyVal visit comes at a time when Manx police have multiple international money laundering investigations ongoing.

But experts in regulation believe this is not necessarily a negative and in fact can be seen in almost the opposite way, as it shows mechanisms are in place to investigate financial crime are working effectively.

MoneyVal inspectors assess technical compliance with 40 Financial Action Task Force recommendations with each rated as either compliant, where no shortcomings are identified, largely compliant, partially compliant and non-compliant.

The last mutual evaluation inspection of Isle of Man was carried out in 2016 when a number of areas of low or partial compliance were highlighted. As a result the island was placed in so-called ‘enhanced follow-up’.

Further reports noted the progress made in addressing compliance deficiencies.