Regulatory and Investigations - recent trends and developments in Africa

BGFIBank DRC has become one of the first financial institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa to receive the AML 30000 anti-money laundering certification.

A Democratic Republic of Congo-based bank has obtained an international anti-money laundering certification, one of the first banks in Sub-Saharan Africa to do so.

BGFIBank DRC, the Kinshasa-headquartered subsidiary of Gabon-headquartered BGFIBank Group, secured AML 30000 certification in December. AML 30000 is an evaluation and endorsement of a company’s risk assessment, know-your-client processes, document retention, suspicious activity reporting, governance, IT and resources.

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Parliament has enacted the Anti-Money Laundering Bill 2020 to strengthen Ghana’s anti-money laundering legal framework and help the country exit the “grey list” of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

In April 2009, Ghana was blacklisted by the FATF after an evaluation exercise by the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), in which the country scored zero compliance on 16 key FATF recommendations.

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With the exit of Liberia from the enhanced expedited reporting process, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Liberia has announced Liberia’s automatic removal from its previous downgraded status by the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in West Africa (GIABA).

GIABA is a specialized institution of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) responsible to facilitate the adoption and implementation of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) measures.

The decision taken by GIABA’s regional body on Liberia, according to a press statement from the FIU, was due to the country’s progress in addressing some of the deficiencies in its Anti-Money Laundering regime.   

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Bank of Tanzania (BOT) has teamed up with Tanzania Police Force to crackdown on a cartel of black market money dealers who have mushroomed in the country in recent days.

BoT Manager for Microfinance and Bureau de Change Supervision, Mr Victor Tarimu told The Citizen that the Central Bank has been receiving information from various sources about the existence of an informal foreign exchange market in the country.

In that regard, BoT has commenced working in collaboration with law enforcement organs to crackdown on the cartel that could significantly have a negative impact on the country’s economy.

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Kenya on Friday committed to implementing international standards on transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes as part of a national effort to curb tax evasion and illicit financial flows.

Julius Muia, National Treasury Principal Secretary, assured global tax administration players that Kenya is on course to implement automatic exchange of information protocols on tax matters by September 2022.

“This commitment to the Global Forum and the implementation of the international standards of transparency and exchange of information is because Kenya appreciates the importance of international co-operation in addressing the challenges of tax evasion,” Muia said.

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McKinsey will repay tens of millions of dollars in fees to South Africa after a judicial inquiry into alleged systemic corruption in the country uncovered evidence of irregularities in contracts that the consultancy firm had with a local partner at government-owned companies.

The firm has undertaken to pay back all of the money that it earned on the contracts, an amount that is “likely to be around R650m ($43m)”, the judicial inquiry said on Wednesday, a day before senior McKinsey partners will appear before it.

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The jolt of energy delivered to the anti-corruption movement in Angola came from an unexpected source.

In January, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and partners in 20 countries published the Luanda Leaks investigation, documenting two decades of inside deals and government giveaways, aided by Western lawyers and advisers, that made Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the southern African country’s long time strongman ruler, enormously rich.

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African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has officially launched the operations of ‘MANSA’, a pan-African customer due diligence repository for financial institutions, corporate entities and SMEs, developed to address the perceived risk of doing business in Africa and with Africans.

MANSA is a single source of the primary data required for Customer Due Diligence (CDD) and Know Your Customer (KYC) checks on African entities, including financial institutions, corporates and SMEs, in accordance with best practices.

The platform will also serve to address key trade related challenges facing the continent, including, the lack of market information, the high cost of doing business in Africa and discovering African counterparties.

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