FICA & Compliance Reports 2022

2022 Compliance Reports

The FSCA has confirmed that there will be no compliance reports yet for this year. They are still busy drafting the new Conduct of Business Reports it seems. The last compliance reports were issued in 2018. It is not clear why it is taking them 4 years + so far to draft new CBR reports. My guess is that they are waiting for the COFI Act first, which still has to become law. Or maybe some more coffee is needed, post-haste. But that is just an educated guess at this stage. In the meantime we continue to make sure our clients are compliant in terms of what the law requires of them.

You can read more here.

FICA FATF Review
In other news, the FIC issued a document with a complicated title: "Important communication regarding FATF Mutual Evaluation: Immediate Outcome 4 - Preventative Measure". I am going to save you the time you would have spent to read the 10 page document and summarise if for you. 

The document basically details that the Financial Action Task Force (the global rule maker responsible for FICA being in your lives) did an assessment on the compliance in South Africa and found us wanting. They say that entities do not understand the money laundering risk and also fail to identify reportable transactions and fail to report them to the FIC.

What does this mean? If South Africa (meaning, effectively, our regulators) does not pull up it's socks, then South Africa might get grey listed. Just know - this is not good. This also means the FIC and FSCA might do more intensive inspections of their own to prevent this. On the bright side, they will also assist the industry more. So expect more guidance and perhaps more changes to come.

Read more about this here.