With an emphasis on inclusive financial integrity, Cenfri provides technical assistance, tools and skills building to policymakers, regulators, supervisors and compliance heads looking to apply risk-based and outcomes accountable approaches to money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation-financing risk strategies. Combining our understanding of relevant risks, familiarity with the FATF guidelines, knowledge of identity and identity-proofing capabilities and leveraging our competency in risk data analytics, we support financial service value chains undertake assessments from national level to the financial product level, thereby enabling the adoption of appropriate customer due diligence practices. Cenfri is committed to assisting countries to move off the grey list responsibly, shaping national risk assessment processes with empirical data and working with remittance services’ compliance managers to ensure that low-income households are not disproportionately affected in receiving low-value remittances. We are interested in mitigating the longer-term impact of illicit financial flows using digital technology (regtech, suptech and AI) to evaluate and monitor illicit flows and enhance inclusive financial integrity. We have worked with BankServ Africa, FSD Africa, GIZ, IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances, UNCDF and AFI on a range of financial integrity and identity projects. |
Opening a bank account in South Africa can be a frustrating experience. First, you need to pull together an inventory of documents (proof of income, employment and address, national identity, passport, etc.), second, you need to book time off work or make provision for an early Saturday (when banks operate),
The quest for inclusive financial markets is a challenge for both business and regulatory models as it requires new and largely unknown portions of the market to be served. This quest can at times be frustrated by regulatory barriers to inclusion that make it costly to provide financial services to
In 2009, the South African government amended the Regulation of Interception of Communications Act (RICA) by introducing identification and verification measures for mobile phone users. The country’s experience of introducing similar requirements under the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) showed that identity verification could be a problematic requirement for low-income
This study was conducted by Genesis Analytics, with the participation of Cenfri members, under the guidance of a steering committee consisting of representatives from the FIRST Management Unit, World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), the
