South Africa's Financial Intelligence Centre imposed 25 administrative sanctions on designated non-financial businesses and professions during the financial year 2024/25, valued at R782,000, according to the FIC Annual Report 2024/25 released at the end of September 2025. Including fines paid under admission-of-non-compliance notices and after a dismissed appeal from the previous year, payments in respect of FIC sanctions totalled R2,228,000. The report sets out the centre's supervision and enforcement activities across what is known as the DNFBP sector.
Designated non-financial businesses and professions are entities outside the traditional banking and financial services perimeter that nonetheless carry obligations under the Financial Intelligence Centre Act owing to their exposure to large cash transactions or their role in facilitating property transfers and legal arrangements. Legal practitioners, estate agents, trust and company service providers, dealers in high-value goods such as precious metals and stones, and casinos all fall within the DNFBP category, and each is required to register with the FIC, implement customer due diligence procedures, and report suspicious transactions.
556 INSPECTIONS
The FIC conducted 556 inspections during the year, concentrating its supervisory resources on institutions assessed as presenting medium and high levels of money-laundering risk. Of those inspections, 330 institutions were issued with reports requiring remedial action owing to non-compliance with FIC Act obligations. That was well over half of the institutions inspected.
South Africa was grey-listed by the Financial Action Task Force in early 2023.
APPEALS
Of the 25 sanctions issued during the year, two resulted in appeals to the FIC Act Appeal Board. In a further case, an institution whose five registered branches had been sanctioned separately filed an appeal that was subsequently upheld by the Appeal Board.
The FIC's enforcement programme runs in parallel with the FSCA's supervision of licensed financial services providers, alongside other supervisory bodies such as the SARB's Prudential Authority, which supervises banks.