Old Mutual addressing South Africa's Greylisting

Despite the South African government making huge strides in addressing the concerns raised by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in its review report published in October 2021, South Africa has been placed on the official list of countries and jurisdictions that are identified as having strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, proliferation, and terrorist financing.

FATF acknowledged that South Africa has a solid legal framework for combating money laundering and terrorist financing but is of the view that the country must improve in its efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist financing transgressions, detect, and seize illicit cash flows, and improve the availability of beneficial ownership information.

We are encouraged by the recognition from FATF of the progress made by the Prudential Authority in the application of a risk-based approach to supervision. As a result, there are no action plans that relate directly to preventive measures in respect of the financial and insurance sectors.

We support government’s commitment to rebuild the institutions that were weakened during state capture. This is essential to addressing crime and corruption in South Africa.

While this decision could have potential financial and economic impacts, at Old Mutual, we do not expect South Africa’s “greylisting” to have a material impact on our relationship with our customers. Old Mutual has always taken care to safeguard our customers’ investments with us and we will continue to do so through our processes and controls to manage the risk of money-laundering, proliferation, and terrorist financing.

We have ensured that our local and international clients are informed of the steps we have taken and what they need to know. Our robust and proactive approach to dealing with this matter is expected to lead to only minimal disruption to our customers and not affect normal business activities.

In addition to this, Old Mutual remains in constant communication with our international investment and asset managers to understand any additional requirements that may arise from the FATF decision. We also remain committed to engaging individually with customers and intermediaries should we require additional information from them.

We will continue to work with our regulators to maintain the integrity of our regulatory environment in South Africa and to manage the risks associated with money laundering, proliferation, and terrorist financing activities and will continue to support law enforcement agencies in their efforts.

Old Mutual maintains a zero-tolerance approach to money laundering and our business being used to facilitate finance terrorist activities. We believe that if everyone does the right thing and the policies are implemented to fight crime, the period over which SA remains on the list can be relatively short.