Yesterday at its Plenary meeting, The Financial Action Task Force removed four countries from its Grey List.

No prior indication of these removals had reached us and we were discussing the situation with a compliance officer in South Africa only the day before the meeting. He was saying that the FATF's listing was having a long term effect.

So, the news that Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique and Burkino Faso have all been removed from the grey list is very welcome.

All four countries have serious economic problems that need to be addressed and the removal from the list frees overseas financial institutions to properly risk assess dealings instead of a blanket decision that all business is subject to additional risk solely because of where it originates.