Terrorism financing

South Africa has made strides in enhancing its AML/CFT framework, notably by rectifying technical deficiencies in its targeted financial sanctions regime pertaining to terrorism financing. The objective is to augment the utilisation of financial intelligence provided by the FIC to bolster investigations into money laundering and terrorist financing, ultimately bolstering the capacity of AML/CFT supervisors. Despite these advancements, FATF’s February 2024 update highlighted the necessity for South Africa to persist in executing its action plan aimed at addressing strategic shortcomings, particularly by revising its assessment of terrorist financing to guide the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy against terrorism financing. As of October 2021, South Africa was partially compliant with the measure of “terrorist finance offence”, achieving full compliance by October 2023. Concerning “targeted financial sanctions related to terrorism and terrorist financing”, South Africa was non-compliant in October 2021 but improved to partial compliance by October 2023.