By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) announced that South Africa has completed all 22 action items that were contained in the Action Plan adopted when South Africa was greylisted in February 2023.
This emerged at the task force’s plenary meeting in Strasbourg, France, on Friday.
South Africa was added to the FATF greylist after the watchdog found deficiencies in the country’s measures against money laundering and terror financing.
The FATF is the international standard-setting body that oversees global compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter financing of terrorism (CFT) rules.
The FATF said South Africa was among the jurisdictions it granted flexibility which were not facing immediate deadlines to report progress voluntarily.
“At its June 2025 plenary the FATF made the initial determination that South Africa has substantially completed its action plan and warrants an on-site assessment to verify that the implementation of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing reforms has begun and is being sustained, and that the necessary political commitment remains in place to sustain implementation in the future.”
The statement said South Africa had made progress in reforms, including a sustained increase in outbound mutual legal assistance in money laundering and terror financing investigations and confiscations of assets in line with its risk profile.
South Africa has [also] made [reforms in] improving risk-based supervision of designated non-financial businesses and professionals and demonstrating that all anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing supervisors apply effective, proportionate, and consistent sanctions for noncompliance.
“[South Africa has made reforms in] ensuring that competent authorities have timely access to accurate and up-to-date beneficial owner information on legal persons and arrangements and applying sanctions for breaches by legal persons to beneficial owner obligations.”
It said the country was also demonstrating a sustained increase in law enforcement agencies’ requests for financial intelligence from the Financial Intelligence Centre for its money laundering and terror financing investigations, seizure and confiscation of proceeds, and updating its risk assessment information.
In a responding statement on Friday, the National Treasury commended the law enforcement entities, including the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), the SAPS, State Security Agency and NPA, “for the sustained increase in investigations and prosecutions of serious and complex money laundering and terror financing activities”.
“This made it possible for South Africa to secure the upgrades of the last two remaining action items, often considered to be the most difficult, in the current reporting cycle.”
“The improvements to South Africa’s AML/CFT regime are particularly important for South Africa, given the legacy of state capture, one element of which was that law enforcement and prosecuting institutions were deliberately weakened. Improvements in these domains are critical not just for getting off the greylist, but for strengthening the fight against crime and corruption, and for contributing to the integrity of the South African financial system, Treasury said.
“Exiting the FATF greylist is a significant step forward as South Africa continues to improve and strengthen its
supervisory and criminal justice systems.”
“The completion of the Action Plan paves the way for the final step before the FATF can delist South Africa, which is an on-site visit to South Africa by the FATF Africa Joint Group (JG). During this visit, the JG will confirm the country’s ongoing commitment in the implementation of the country’s fight against money laundering, terror financing and other financial crimes.”
The on-site visit by the FATF team, expected before the October 2025 plenary.
Meanwhile the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) said, this is a significant step forward – but not the time for complacency.
It is essential that we all remain fully engaged with the process to ensure the country ultimately exits the grey list completely, said Reserve Bank.