ANTI MONEY LAUNDERING, TERRORISM FINANCING: GENERAL LAWS AMENDMENT BILL TABLED

ANTI MONEY LAUNDERING, TERRORISM FINANCING: GENERAL LAWS AMENDMENT BILL TABLED

• 28 May 2026
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

Parliamentary papers have confirmed the formal introduction of a General Laws (Anti-Money Laundering & Combating Terrorism Financing) Amendment Bill, which has been referred to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance for processing.

Released in draft form in January 2026 for public comments, the Bill seeks to address ‘outstanding deficiencies’ identified during the 2023 international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey listing and subsequent follow-up process. This in anticipation of the next FATF review.

To that end, amendments to the following statutes are proposed:

• 1984 Close Corporations Act
• 1997 Non-profit Organisations Act
• 2001 Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) Act
• 2008 Companies Act, and
• 2017 Financial Sector Regulation Act.

Once passed by Parliament, enacted and operationalised, among other things amendments to the FIC Act will:

• empower the FIC to:
  • conduct lifestyle audits
  • request information from a public entity and municipality
• extend the period for which records should be kept
• expand the scope of information required from ‘accountable institutions, reporting institutions and persons subject to reporting obligations’
• provide for a magistrate or judge in an area of jurisdiction within which an accountable institution conducts business to hear FIC applications in respect of monitoring orders
• expand the circumstances under which the protection of persons making reports should apply, and
• require accountable institutions to take cognisance of the risk that new delivery mechanisms and the use of new or developing technologies may facilitate:
  • money laundering
  • terrorism financing
  • terrorism financing proliferation, and
  • related activities.

Among other things, proposed amendments to the Companies Act seek to:

• empower the Companies & Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) to:
  • deregister a company failing to submit a securities register within a specified period, and
  • impose administrative penalties
• empower the Companies Tribunal to review a decision imposing an administrative penalty, and
• require certain entities to report to the CIPC ‘any material discrepancy in the information it holds in respect of beneficial owners’.

Once the Bill has been passed, enacted and commenced, in terms of the amended Close Corporation Act such entities will be obliged to comply with annual return requirements set out in section 33 of the Companies Act.

• Bill
• parliamentary papers

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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