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Bloomberg notes that South Africa is set to get off the global dirty money watchlist next year, but there are still some challenges to fix in the system, says the National Treasury.

We were put on the list early last year for not doing enough to fight money laundering and terrorism financing, hurting the country’s reputation amid investor concern over already slow growth, crime, and corruption.

The Financial Action Task Force has identified 22 areas that the country needs to tackle – of which eight have since been completed.

The FATF is an intergovernmental organisation founded on the initiative of the G7 that spearheads worldwide efforts to address money laundering, terrorism, and proliferation financing. It advocates for global standards to reduce these risks and evaluates countries’ efforts to combat them.

The watchdog has given the country until February to address these flagged items to get off the so-called grey list by June 2025.

“Treasury does not expect South Africa to exit greylisting before June 2025, as per the Action Plan deadlines,” it said in a statement Tuesday.

“It remains a tough challenge to address all 14 of the remaining Action Items by February 2025.”

South Africa still has two reporting cycles due in September 2024 and January 2025 to address outstanding issues. It aims to complete nine of them by September with the rest due in January.

It needs to get all of them done to exit the grey list by June 2025.

“Agencies and authorities will need to continue to demonstrate significant improvements” Treasury cautioned.

In the past, Nigeria, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Uganda were among the African countries on the grey list. However, this year, after a review, the FATF has also added Kenya and Namibia to the grey list.

BusinessInsider Africa notes that although the historical impact of greylisting on finances remains inconclusive, studies conducted after 2016 have reported a decline of up to 16% in cross-border payments.

[source:bloomberg]