In October 2021 CIPC participated in the Financial Task Force (FATF) assessments. Based on the findings contained in the report, it determined that South Africa should improve its mechanisms to ensure accurate and verified beneficial ownership information is available timeously to the competent authorities by, among other things, affording law enforcement authorities the power to gain direct and timely access to ownership and control information of legal persons and entities for them to have a greater capability to thoroughly and effectively investigate financial crimes. This also enable CIPC to impose administrative sanctions and penalties directly for non-compliance with information and filing requirements.
In February 2023 South Africa was put onto the FATF Grey List, resulting in South Africa being required to have increased monitoring due to various strategic, regulatory and compliance deficiencies. In response to this, CIPC’s action plan and in terms of its extended mandate as the authorised regulator in terms of the Companies Act, General Laws (Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism) Amendment Act and the Companies Amendment Regulations of 2023, all Companies and Close Corporations have to file a beneficial ownership record starting from 1 April 2023.
In light of this, each company or close corporation have to file a beneficial ownership record and securities register when paying their annual licence fee. Documents required for each shareholder will be:
Certified ID – not older than 3 months
Current physical and postal address
Valid email address and cell phone number – one-time pins will be sent to both these and both pins need to be forwarded to me within 24 hours in order to load the beneficial ownership records
Income tax number