SA a step closer to being removed from greylist, says FATF

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Friday announced the upgrade of four of the six outstanding action items by South Africa at the conclusion of its latest plenary meetings in Paris, the National Treasury announced.

The FATF, an international organisation that sets standards to fight money laundering and terrorist financing, said South Africa was now deemed to have addressed or largely addressed 20 of the 22 action items in its action plan, leaving two items to be addressed in the next reporting period that runs from March to June.

This would enable South Africa to be considered for delisting from the FATF greylist in October.

The FATF plenary adopted the report and recommendations of the Africa Joint Group on Friday and noted South Africa’s progress in its public statement.

The Treasury welcomed the efforts of financial and non-financial regulators and beneficial ownership registries and its law enforcement users in securing upgrades for the four action items it was directly responsible for in the current reporting cycle.

It also noted the ongoing efforts by all the law enforcement agencies to demonstrate the significant progress in respect of the two action items not yet upgraded, relating to the investigation and prosecution of serious and complex money laundering and of terrorist financing.

In its statement on Friday, the FATF said South Africa should continue to work on implementing its action plan to address its remaining strategic deficiency on demonstrating a sustained increase in investigations and prosecutions of serious and complex money laundering and the full range of terrorist financing activities in line with its risk profile.

“South Africa continues to address both outstanding action items by June to enable an exit from greylisting by October,” the National Treasury said.

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