GREY LIST EXIT: TREASURY ON ROAD AHEAD

GREY LIST EXIT: TREASURY ON ROAD AHEAD

• 27 October 2025
• National Treasury
• SA Legal Academy

Having ‘strengthened the effectiveness’ of its anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime to meet commitments in its February 2023 action plan, South Africa still has work to do. This is according to the international Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s) 24 October 2025 report on jurisdictions under increased monitoring. No longer subjected to that level of scrutiny, South Africa should nevertheless ‘continue’ to work with the FATF and the Eastern & Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group ‘to sustain … improvements in its AML/CFT system’.

In short, South Africa has finally manged to adequately address ‘strategic deficiencies’ identified by the FATF in 2023 and is no longer grey-listed – a ‘major policy and institutional achievement’, in National Treasury’s view.

Among other things, a backdated media statement posted on the National Treasury website two days after the FATF announcement underscored the significance of this welcome development in the context of ‘the state capture era … (with its) weakening of key law enforcement and other institutions’.

The statement also referred to a post grey list exit FATF requirement that South Africa should demonstrate ‘continued commitment through measurable outcomes’, including successful AML/CFT-related ‘investigations, prosecutions and sanctions’. ‘These actions will form the basis of the next FATF mutual evaluation …, which is expected to commence in the first half of 2026 and conclude in October 2027’.

• FATF report
• National Treasury statement

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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