A recent media statement from National Treasury confirmed South Africa’s positive progress regarding the country’s greylisting as at October 2024. The statement comes after the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Plenary announced nine upgrades for South Africa from its 22-item Action Plan, including eight to “largely addressed” and one to “partly addressed”. South Africa is now deemed to largely or fully address 16 of the 22 action items in its Action Plan, leaving the country with six outstanding action items to be addressed for the last scheduled reporting cycle, concluding in February 2025.
South Africa is now left with one reporting cycle to address the remaining six action items. Three of these relate to demonstrating a sustained increase in the investigation and prosecution of complex money laundering, terror financing and unlicensed cross-border money or value transfer services (MVTS). The remaining three relate to the timely access of beneficial ownership information in respect of companies and trusts, and the imposition of remedial action and dissuasive sanctions by designated AML/CFT supervisors.
While National Treasury welcomes the progress made, it emphasises that it remains a challenge to exit the grey list at the conclusion of the next cycle as South Africa will need to address all six outstanding action items by February 2025 to do so. All relevant agencies and authorities must continue to make substantial progress, ensuring that these improvements are indeed both sustainable and effective.
To read the full Media Release, click here.