The National Treasury said its work was not yet done, but progress has clearly been made. The listing can curb financial flows and is a disincentive to investment and trade. The European Union (EU) has removed South Africa from its list of “High-Risk Third Country Jurisdictions”, the latest vote of confidence in the Treasury’s efforts to combat money laundering and clean up the country’s finance risk profile.
The Treasury said on Tuesday, 13 January 2026, that South Africa was added to the high-risk list in 2023 as “an automatic consequence of its greylisting by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)”. South Africa was scrubbed off the Financial Action Task Force Grey List in October last year, paving the way for its removal from the list of countries classified by the EU as risky jurisdictions for financial transactions. Five other African countries – Burkina Faso, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania – were also taken off the high-risk list in the wake of their removal from the grey list.
“Thedecision to remove South Africa (and other African countries) from the European Union listwas published on Friday, 9 January 2026, and will take effect on 29 January 2026,” the Treasury said. “EU law requires that financial institutions in the EU must apply a higher level of scrutiny to transactions involving parties in countries deemed to be high risk (‘enhanced due diligence’), resulting in more rigorous and intrusive checks, increased documentation requirements, continuous monitoring and senior management approval for transactions.” Such regulations can curb financial flows and are a disincentive to investment and trade. The EU said that South Africa and the other five African states delisted had “…
Read Full Article on Daily Maverick
[paywall]
strengthened the effectiveness of their AML/CFT regimes and addressed technical deficiencies”. Pointedly, the Treasury said its work was not yet done and that “deficiencies in the prevention, identification, investigation and prosecution of money laundering and terrorism financing” still needed to be addressed. South Africans weary of crime and corruption will be well aware of that. But at least progress has clearly been made.
[/paywall]
