ESWATINI has strengthened its position against the threat of international financial greylisting after securing four upgrades that take the country to satisfactory ratings on 32 of the 40 global standards used to assess safeguards against money laundering and terrorist financing.
The improvement means that only eight of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendations now remain below the levels of compliant or largely compliant, according to Finance Minister Neal Rijkenberg.
For an ordinary bank customer, business owner or investor, the significance goes beyond the technical language of the assessment.
Greylisting places a country under increased international monitoring because of strategic weaknesses in its systems for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing. While it does not amount to financial sanctions, it can increase scrutiny of transactions involving the affected country and affect confidence in its financial system.
The kingdom is not currently on the FATF grey list, but the latest improvement strengthens its technical position as authorities work to keep the country away from that process.
Rijkenberg, who led an Eswatini delegation to the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) meetings in Kigali, Rwanda, described the outcome as a significant gain for the country.
“It was a very successful meeting and Eswatini was very much on the agenda,” he said.
The minister explained that the country entered the latest discussions with 28 of the 40 FATF recommendations rated either compliant or largely compliant and had sought re-ratings on four additional areas.
Initially, only two of those requests succeeded. According to Rijkenberg, objections were raised against the other two proposed upgrades, prompting the local delegation to defend the reforms it had undertaken.
The delegation included Attorney General Sifiso Khumalo, Financial Intelligence Unit Director General Babhekile Matsebula, Finance Principal Secretary Vusi Dlamini and Justice and Constitutional Affairs Principal Secretary Dorcas Dlamini, alongside officials from the respective institutions.
Rijkenberg said the delegation successfully argued the two disputed cases, ultimately securing all four upgrades sought by the country.
“We ended up winning both arguments and were successful as we now have 32 out of 40 which are compliant, meaning that we are now moving from partially compliant to largely compliant, which is a lot better place to be in,” he explained.
Strictly speaking, the 32 refers to individual FATF Recommendations rated either Compliant or Largely Compliant rather than an overall classification of Eswatini as ‘largely compliant’.
The progress is nevertheless substantial when measured against where the country started. When ESAAMLG adopted the country’s Mutual Evaluation Report in 2022, only three of the 40 recommendations were rated Compliant and 11 largely compliant. Another 19 were partially compliant and seven were non-compliant. That meant 26 of the 40 recommendations fell below the compliant or largely compliant levels.
The assessment identified weaknesses across the country’s framework for preventing criminals from using the financial system to conceal illicit proceeds and stopping funds from being channelled towards terrorism.
The country subsequently amended legislation and strengthened regulatory requirements as it sought better ratings.
By the August 2025 follow-up assessment, ESAAMLG found that the country had made progress in addressing technical deficiencies identified in 2022 and upgraded several Recommendations. The country, however, remained under ESAAMLG’s enhanced follow-up process. The latest Kigali outcome, according to Rijkenberg, takes that progress further. The FATF’s 40 Recommendations are international standards against money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing. They cover areas ranging from customer due diligence and suspicious transaction reporting to financial supervision, company transparency, law-enforcement powers and international cooperation.
Technical compliance, however, is only one part of the assessment. FATF separately examines effectiveness, whether the laws, institutions and systems established by a country actually work in practice. This is measured through 11 immediate outcomes examining, among other things, how effectively authorities understand financial crime risks, supervise institutions, investigate offences, confiscate criminal proceeds and disrupt terrorist financing.
The distinction is important because improving laws and regulations does not, on its own, guarantee that a country will avoid increased international scrutiny.
FATF’s review criteria consider both technical compliance and effectiveness. One of the triggers that can subject a jurisdiction to review is having 20 or more of the 40 Recommendations rated non-compliant or partially compliant. Poor results on particular key recommendations or serious weaknesses in effectiveness can also trigger review.
Rijkenberg said the latest upgrades, therefore, moved the country further away from the technical weaknesses that could place it on a path towards greylisting.
“It does help the country a lot to just move away from the risks of being greylisted or blacklisted or going down that road,” he said.
The Kigali trip also provided the delegation with an opportunity to pursue another financial reform programme, the implementation of the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS).
Rijkenberg said the delegation met representatives of the Rwanda Cooperation Initiative, which has been assisting the country with the project.
IFMIS is intended to modernise the management of public finances by bringing key government financial functions into an integrated digital system.
Rijkenberg acknowledged that implementation had taken longer than government initially anticipated, but said the project remained on track.
He attributed some of the delays to the difficulty of changing a system used across government, including resistance and apprehension among users.
“We really hope that next year we’re going to have a real breakthrough there,” he said, adding that government intended to ensure IFMIS featured prominently in the next budget cycle.
