Fusion, breakup and scattering for the ⁹Be + ¹⁴⁴Sm system at near barrier energies are investigated by different approaches. We show that at energies above the barrier there is a small complete fusion suppression when compared with predictions from a double folding potential and with a similar tightly bound system. At sub-barrier energies there is no significant deviation from the predictions using coupled channel calculations that do not include the breakup channel. The energy dependence of the optical potential does not show the usual threshold anomaly found in tightly bound systems. From a simultaneous analysis of fusion and scattering data we estimate the distance where breakup starts to occur.