According to the Financial Stability Review report for the first half of 2025 released late last week, the Reserve Bank's Financial Sector Contingency Forum FSCF has developed strategies to keep South Africa's financial system operational in the event of an electricity grid collapse, undersea cable disaster or even a malicious distributed denial-of-service attack.
"Playbooks have been developed to respond to any operational disruption that may prevent the financial system from providing financial products and services uninterruptedly," said the report. "From an operational resilience perspective, the FSCF has developed frameworks for responding to shocks such as a loss of access to national and international financial and technological infrastructure."
South Africa was placed on the Financial Action Task Force FATF grey list in February 2023 due to weaknesses in the country's ability to address money laundering and counter terrorist financing activity through appropriate regulatory frameworks. Grey-listing has a negative impact on a country's credit rating, its ability to attract foreign investment and its financial relationships with other sovereign states.
According to the Reserve Bank report, the FATF said last week that South Africa had "largely addressed" all 22 action items agreed to as part of the action plan aimed at lifting the country out of grey-list status. The Reserve Bank expects South Africa will be removed from the grey list by October, following an inspection visit by FATF officials.
"Operational disruptions such as the CrowdStrike incident in July 2024 or the failure of undersea data cables in March 2024 could also result in reduced - or even a complete loss of - access to critical international financial and technological infrastructure," said the Reserve Bank.