South Africa has been greylisted
South Africa has been greylisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) due to the government’s failure to proclaim and enforce the anti-money laundering and terrorism-funding regulations.
The global watchdog published an updated list on Friday.
All the countries that have been greylisted will be monitored to ensure that the implementation of anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism regulations are effective.
The listed countries have resolved to swiftly identify strategic deficiencies within agreed timeframes.
“The FATF Standards do not envisage de-risking, or cutting-off entire classes of customers, but call for the application of a risk-based approach.”
The listing of South Africa follows an evaluation report conducted in 2019, which found that the country rated poorly regarding compliance.
The FATF says South Africa made a high-level political commitment to work with the task force and the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group to strengthen the effectiveness of the country’s anti-money laundering regime.
“South Africa will work to implement its Financial Action Task Force action plan by demonstrating a sustained increase in outbound mutual legal assistance requests that help facilitate money laundering and the financing of terrorism, investigations and confiscations of different types of assets in line with its risk profile, improving risk-based supervision of designated non-financial businesses and professions and demonstrating that all anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism supervisors apply effective, proportionate, and effective sanctions for noncompliance.”
ALSO READ
