Trustees are urged to comply with new beneficial ownership register requirements by 18 December 2024 to avoid penalties. File photo.
The ‘new’ requirement for trustees to submit “beneficial ownership” registers to the Master on a real-time basis was effectively introduced on April 1, 2023. With all South Africans (including the government) trying to find their feet in this new compliance storm, after the amendment of various laws to remain off the greylist, compliance rates started ticking up slowly.
In the meantime, the Master moved from a temporary ‘Google doc’ format to a permanent register. Even though the government issued various communications, they did not seem to have reached the correct audience; today, there are still many trust service providers that are unaware of the ‘new’ requirements, leaving their clients exposed.
The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development issued a media statement on May 4, 2023, reminding (informing) the public that these new measures have come into effect from April 1, 2023, with the heading “Increased measures for Trusts to combat money-laundering and terrorism financing crimes”.
The Chief Master also issued Directive 8 of 2023, effective October 16, 2023, titled “Beneficial Ownership Register”, which reminds trustees that the requirements apply to all trusts, “irrelevant of when and for what purpose it has been registered”. No extension was provided to submit beneficial ownership information to the Master, and it stressed that “all South Africans are required to provide records and reports on all information about beneficial owners as of April 1, 2023”.
The Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, delivered his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) on November 1, 2023. He stressed that “there is also a significant amount of work that must still be done” to prove to the FATF that enough is being done to remove South Africa from the greylist.
The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development issued a Media Statement on September 17, 2024, titled “Trustees not complying with the provisions of the amended Trust Property Control Act to face harsher punishment”. In a drive to improve the chance to exit the greylist in early 2025, the media statement set a deadline for filing the beneficial ownership registers with the Master by November 15, 2024.
National Treasury provided a progress update on October 25, 2025, following the FATF Plenary, which took place on the same day. National Treasury also called upon all companies and professional trustee service providers to ensure registration by companies and trusts they engage (or are involved) with before November 30, 2024, to increase the coverage in beneficial ownership registries significantly. The Master conducted a webinar “Unlocking Transparency: Paving the way for trust and accountability with our Trust Beneficial Ownership Register” on October 29, 2024, to discuss challenges and solutions. The recording was made available on the Department of Justice website.
Since the webinar and posting by various industry players on social media to remind trustees of their legal responsibilities to submit beneficial ownership registers, a significant improvement was noticed in the submissions on the Master’s portal. The Master extended the submission deadline to November 30, 2024, due to the volume of submissions simultaneously.
The Master is busy collating their numbers for submission to the FATF and pleads with those trustees who have not yet submitted registers to do so by December 18, 2024. All trustees who have not yet submitted these registers should do so as good citizens and avoid any possible penalties and fines.
* Phia van der Spuy is a Chartered Accountant with a Masters degree in tax and a registered Fiduciary Practitioner of South Africa®, a Chartered Tax Adviser, a Trust and Estate Practitioner (TEP) and the founder of Trusteeze®, the provider of a digital trust solution.
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