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South Africa’s National Treasury is feeling pretty chuffed with the strides made toward ditching the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Grey List.
This comes after the FATF gave a thumbs-up to four out of six remaining action items during its latest powwow in France.
With nearly all the financial system fixes ticked off, Treasury’s confident SA will shake off the grey-list tag by October.
The country landed on the list back in February 2023 for not playing by global rules on money laundering and illicit cash flows.
So far, the government has nailed 20 out of the 22 required improvements, with the last two set to be sorted between March and June 2025. If all goes according to plan, SA could officially say cheers to the Grey List by October 2025.
“National Treasury welcomes 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 they were directly responsible for in the current reporting cycle,” the organisation said.
Treasury also shouted out law enforcement agencies still hustling to crack down on complex money laundering and terror financing cases.
“Our investigation and prosecution teams are working closely in terms of a prosecution-guided investigation strategy to ensure that we demonstrate the sustained progress as required by FATF. These improvements are critical not just for getting off the grey list, but, critically, for strengthening the fight against crime and corruption,” Treasury said.
Does this mean SA is finally swapping the grey cloud for blue skies?
[Source: IOL]
