{"id":779725,"date":"2024-06-28T13:59:53","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T11:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=779725"},"modified":"2024-06-28T13:59:58","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T11:59:58","slug":"south-africa-still-stuck-on-the-grey-list-after-latest-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/779725\/south-africa-still-stuck-on-the-grey-list-after-latest-review\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa still stuck on the grey list after latest review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South Africa is still on the Financial Action Task Force&#8217;s (FATF) grey list, but there are hopes that it will be removed by 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In February last year, South Africa was placed on the FATF&#8217;s grey list for failing to tackle illicit financial flows, such as terror financing and money laundering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The move raised the costs for banks and asset managers in South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite not getting off the grey list, the FATF did commend South Africa for its high-level political commitment to work on anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML\/CFT). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This has been done by updating its supervisor risk assessment tools for Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs), updating its terrorist financing\u00a0(TF) risk assessment and enhancing the capacity of relevant CFT authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The FATF said that South Africa should continue to work on implementing several action plans to address some of its remaining strategic deficiencies: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Demonstrating a sustained increase in outbound mutual legal assistance (MLA) requests that help facilitate ML\/TF investigations and confiscations of different types of assets in line with its risk profile;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Demonstrating that all AML\/CFT supervisors apply effective, proportionate, and effective sanctions for non-compliance; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Ensuring that competent authorities have timely access to accurate and up-to-date BO information on legal persons and arrangements and applying sanctions for breaches of violation by legal persons to beneficial ownership obligations;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Demonstrate a sustained increase in investigations and prosecutions of serious and complex money laundering and the full range of TF activities in line with its risk profile; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Enhancing its identification, seizure and confiscation of proceeds and instrumentalities of a wider range of predicate crimes in line with its risk profile; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Ensuring the effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions and demonstrating an effective mechanism to identify individuals and entities that meet the criteria for domestic designation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Wasn&#8217;t expected <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That said, South Africa was only expected to get off the grey list in 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In March,<strong> South Africa\u2019s Reserve Bank (SARB) governor, Lesetja Kganyago,<\/strong> said he is confident the country will be withdrawn from international financial crime watchdog FATF\u2019s \u201cgrey list\u201d next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe feel confident that South Africa will be removed from the grey list by the next review date, in 2025, given the fixes we are implementing,\u201d said Kganyago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;(The grey list) has&nbsp;been a costly episode for us,\u201d said Kganyago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Christopher Malan, Executive Manager of Compliance and Prevention at the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIC), told BusinessTech earlier in the year that they were confident that they could meet a January 2025 deadline, even if they encountered issues with lawyers and real estate agents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"Vf3QZMYRFK\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/760807\/warning-for-lawyers-and-real-estate-agents-in-south-africa\/\">Warning for lawyers and real estate agents in South Africa<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Warning for lawyers and real estate agents in South Africa&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/760807\/warning-for-lawyers-and-real-estate-agents-in-south-africa\/embed\/#?secret=DaXtQviUC1#?secret=Vf3QZMYRFK\" data-secret=\"Vf3QZMYRFK\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/779129\/we-compared-takealot-vs-amazon-deliveries-and-the-winner-was-a-close-call\/\">We compared Takealot vs Amazon deliveries \u2013 and the winner was a close call<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa has not left the Financial Action Task Force&#8217;s (FATF) grey list after the latest review, with officials working towards a 2025 deadline. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":645029,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[20139,26],"class_list":["post-779725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-fatf","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779725"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":779744,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779725\/revisions\/779744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}