Nauru's Finance Minister, David Adeang, says the country is disappointed to have been left on an international blacklist for money laundering.
The Financial Action Taskforce, a global watchdog group on illegal financing, has deleted the Cook Islands from its blacklist but retained Nauru, Burma and Nigeria.
David Adeang says Nauru is naturally disappointed but believes it will be off the blacklist by the time of the next taskforce meeting, understood to be in June.
Mr Adeang says the FATF wants to see better record keeping before it gives the all-clear.
"I think it 's a matter of proper record keeping regarding some of the companies that are registered here in Nauru. That's still an activity that's legal and to which the FATF has no objections, but it's the records that we keep that I think that we need to improve that."
Mr Adeang says the issue is the major impediment to establishing banking services on Nauru.
He says Nauru mistakenly believed establishment of a Financial Intelligence Unit was more urgent.
