Closure of bank accounts: engagement with Gardee Godrich Attorneys, National Treasury & Regulators

This premium content has been made freely available

Finance Standing Committee

07 September 2022
Chairperson: Mr J Maswanganyi (ANC)
Share this page:

Meeting Summary

In this virtual meeting, the Portfolio Committee on Finance was briefed by Gardee Godrich Attorneys, National Treasury, the Prudential Authority, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, and the Financial Intelligence Centre on the arbitrary and unilateral closure of bank accounts.

Gardee Godrich Attorneys reported that it represented clients in a matter that is currently at the Western Cape Equality court. Their clients’ accounts were closed arbitrarily. The clients were associated with risk and the common denominator between the clients is that they are black people. The consequences of those closures brought undesirable circumstances for the clients.
National Treasury and the regulators all acknowledged that this matter is currently before the court and they could not discuss specific issues in detail.

The authorities provided regulatory context to the matter. This included the conduct standards that banks are meant to adhere to. These standards state that banks should give notice to their clients before terminating their contractual relationship and the standards offer guidance on how banks should go about closing these accounts.  

It was emphasised that the conduct standards are not guidance. They are subordinate and enforceable. The FSCA can enforce penalties should it find substantive evidence of non-compliance with the standards.

Some members stated that it is not the job of the government to interfere in the relationship between commercial banks and their clients and that this matter should run its course with the court of law before the Committee can discuss it while some members were of the opinion that the Committee should pay attention to this matter whether there is pending litigation or not.

Others questioned the grounds that banks use to close clients’ accounts and the arbitrary nature of the accounts as well as the applicability of the conduct standards.

A Member was of the view that Parliament should respond to the recommendation by Justice Zondo that existing legislation be changed, and that Parliament introduces new laws requiring banks to afford clients the opportunity to defend themselves. This member argued that it is ordinary South Africans who bear the brunt of arbitrary bank closure because such actions lead to corporates being unable to pay salaries and their third-party obligations.

The Chairperson stated that if members of the public approach Parliament with an issue, Parliament cannot close its doors and direct the public to the judiciary. Parliament cannot always outsource the issues that it has to deal with to another organ of government. Parliament has a role to play. In this case, there are complaints about racial discrimination and arbitrary closure of bank accounts. Parliament has made it very clear that it is not going to deal with the case under review. However, many people are raising this issue and they do not have access to legal representation for their issues to be attended to. Parliament has to refer these matters to entities that have been tasked with dealing with these issues.
 

Meeting report

The Chairperson welcomed the Committee and all the present stakeholders to the meeting. He noted an apology for Mr Sarupen.

The Chairperson provided the background for this meeting. A letter was received from Gardee Godrich Attorneys (GGA) regarding the arbitrary and unilateral closure of bank accounts in South Africa. The Committee thought that it would be important for the firm to appear before the Committee and brief them on their findings

Presentation by GGA on the arbitrary and unilateral closure of bank accounts

Adv Tiny Seboko, GGA, stated that there is a matter pending in the Western Cape Equality Court between the Sekunjalo group of companies and a few major banks in South Africa. GGA, on behalf of five applicants, sought leave to intervene in the pending Equality Court application for their own clients in their personal and professional capacities. The application was granted by the court without opposition from the respondents and the applicants. The GGA clients sought to be permitted to join the proceedings because the grounds in the proceedings are similar to those mounted by the Sekunjalo group of companies. GGA complained to the courts that the banks stopped their clients’ accounts unilaterally and arbitrarily. When those applications were sought, the grounds were that the banks had not notified their clients of any potential policy violations or that their clients were flagged as influential people or could be potentially participating in money laundering activities. Clients were just provided with letters that they are a risk and their accounts would be closed.

Dr D George (DA) asked why this matter is being discussed in the Committee given the fact that the matter is currently before a court of law. This is not the Committee’s function.

 

The Chairperson replied that the Committee should allow Adv Seboko to make her presentation first, then the Committee will deliberate.

Adv Seboko had connectivity issues and Adv Nikiwe Nyathi continued the presentation on her behalf.

She stated that their clients have been arbitrarily associated with risk and the common denominator between the clients is that they are black people. The case is going to the Equality Court on the basis of discrimination. Not only one bank did this, but all the other banks followed suit. This is called unbanking. This stifles many aspects of their clients’ lives, even affecting their kids’ lives.

Adv Seboko continued on the point about the effects of unbanking. Without going deep into the merits of the case, she stated that an application was made to the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) to see whether there was reasonable suspicion from the banks for acting how they were acting. Did their clients commit irregularities?  They did not know whether the banks consider their clients high risk but they knew that the consequences of those closures bring undesirable circumstances for the clients.

The first application to the FIC is a woman who is a state employee in the Eastern Cape whose bank account was terminated without knowledge. The second is a sole proprietor of a business in KwaZulu-Natal, however, both his personal and business accounts were terminated by the bank without prior notice. The bank account of the political party, “Democracy in Action”, was also terminated and the party was accused of allegiance to a certain individual in the country. All three of our applicants are black individuals and there has been no accusation of money laundering or illicit financial activities in or outside the country. They have done nothing wrong in that regard.

Briefing by National Treasury: Twin Peaks System: Treating Customers Fairly

Mr Vukile Davidson, Chief Director: Financial Sector Policy, National Treasury, thanked the Chairperson and expressed apologies on behalf of Deputy Minister David Masondo, as well as Mr Ismail Momoniat, Acting Director General of National Treasury.

He explained that the matter being discussed is before the court and therefore National Treasury cannot comment on any specifics relating to the matter. What National Treasury will be presenting is the description of the framework that it has in ensuring that customers’ financial products are treated fairly. This has been a central policy objective of National Treasury for over a decade now and significant progress is being made in this area.

The financial sector was largely regulated prudentially only before 2017. Following the 2007 Fidentia scandal and 2008 global financial crisis, National Treasury published the policy paper “A safer financial sector to serve South Africa Better” (2011), which showed the importance of underpinning the regulatory framework that customers are treated fairly and not abused. The Twin Peaks was introduced in 2018.

A stronger Ombud system was established with the Chief Ombud.  This provides an additional mechanism for non-rich customers to challenge decisions taken by banks, without the need to incur high legal costs. The Ombud system is important because it really is designed for financial services customers who do not have a lot of lawyers and cannot engage the services of lawyers to be able to be heard and have their grievances heard.

Ms Seipati Nekhondela, Director: Financial Markets and Competitiveness, National Treasury, took the Committee through the financial inclusion efforts that have supported the improvement to access to formal regulated financial services in the past. She stated that the headline data on financial inclusion in South Africa reflect positively on the country’s achievements in this area over the last decade.

Mr F Shivambu (EFF) did not think that National Treasury is presenting what was expected. The focus of the meeting was the arbitrary closure of bank accounts by banks and not broad questions about how the banking sector has been expanded to include more people. He acknowledges the fact that this issue is before the court, however, he believes that the Committee should pay attention to it in a clear way. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) must present the regulatory conditionalities and permissabilities that allow banks to arbitrarily close accounts and the banks should also present the basis that they rely on to close accounts arbitrarily. That should be a separate scheduled matter for discussion and should not be convoluted as it is being done now. We are going to miss the point completely and not address the issue. What is being discussed now is a complete diversion from what was discussed in the first presentation and what the Committee has to interrogate. Banks close people’s accounts due to political differences most of the time and do it just to frustrate the affected person. The Committee should pay attention to this matter whether there is pending litigation or not. He did not think that National Treasury is doing justice to this topic and they are purposefully trying to divert the Committee from the issue.

The Chairperson noted Mr Shivambu’s statements and suggested that the Committee should first hear National Treasury’s presentation and deal with the policy matter so that the Committee can have a background as to where the government stands on the regulation of financial institutions. The FSCA should be able to deal with the issue that Mr Shivambu is raising during their presentation.

Ms Nekhondela continued her presentation. There are still some underlying problems with regard to the use of financial services. While a vast majority of adults have access to transaction accounts, the usage remains very limited for many. Cash still remains a primary means of value of exchange. This is prevalent among low-income earners because access to digital payments in their communities remains very low.

She also spoke on the draft Financial Inclusion Policy; it has as its priority areas, among others, under pillar one “deepen financial inclusion for individuals”, to:

  1. Promote the beneficial use of transaction accounts
  2. Increase the financial inclusion impact of social grant distribution
  3. Improve efficiencies in the on-boarding of financial services clients.

Mr Davidson stated that National Treasury will be responding to the Zondo Commission recommendations in a comprehensive way later this year.

Ms Nekhondela stated that a lot of what National Treasury does from a policy perspective is aimed at ensuring that the most ordinary and vulnerable citizens are not prejudiced against and are able to access financial services. The Ombud data suggests that bank account closures for ordinary citizens are not a significant problem. The last time there was a specific complaint was in 2018. There have been strong increases in the number of usages of bank accounts. Improvements could be made in strengthening the fairness of the process for individuals as recommended by Zondo Commission.

Briefing by Financial Sector Conduct Regulator

Ms Farzana Badat, Deputy Commissioner, FSCA, thanked the Committee for the opportunity to present and expressed apologies on behalf of Mr Unathi Kamlana, Commissioner of the FSCA.

She stated that the FSCA is aware of the pending litigation and is cited as one of the parties in the proceedings therefore it cannot address any specific points that were raised by Adv Seboko upfront. However, the FSCA will take the Committee through what the legal position is in terms of what the FSCA looks at when dealing with the processes that banks go through when closing bank accounts and some of the issues the FSCA they have picked up this far.

She said it is important to share with the Committee that there are two specific issues that guide the FSCA when looking at the closure of bank accounts. The first one is understanding the mandate of the FSCA which comes from the Financial Sector Regulation (FSR) Act which empowers the FSCA to ensure that banks and financial institutions treat customers fairly and promote financial inclusion. The mandate is not to get involved in individual disputes between customers and banks, however, we look at the fairness and consistency that banks apply when executing their rights and responsibilities under their contracts. The FSCA is also empowered to issue conduct standards that banks need to adhere to, to ensure that they treat their customers fairly.

The relationship between banks and their clients is governed by the law of contract and banks, therefore, have the right to refuse to take on a client or to terminate their relationship with a client for various reasons as long as those reasons do not violate public policy or constitutional values. A third party or a regulator cannot force a bank to take a client or reinstate their terminated client-bank relationship.

 

The FSCA itself looks at the conduct standards to ensure that customers are treated fairly. The FSCA is still in the process of assessing the extent to which banks have internalised the requirements of the conduct standards in their institutions. The issue of customer fairness and conduct regulation was not something that applied to banks prior to 2018, therefore the banks are in the early days when it comes to considering fairness requirements. The conduct standards do not alter the relationship between banks and their clients from one of a private contract to one of a public entity and a client. The conduct standards introduce basic standards of fairness that a bank should consider in their process to ensure fairness in the way they treat their clients.

 

Generally, the conduct standards introduce a standard of fairness. However, when it comes to the closure of bank accounts it states that banks must implement processes and procedures relating to the circumstances in which they would withdraw or terminate a financial product or financial service. A bank must provide reasonable notice to a client before terminating its relationship or closing a bank account. The standard is clear that reasons must be given for the proposed withdrawal. There are exceptions, however.

On whether a bank can unilaterally terminate a contract, the requirements of the conduct standards state that banks may not unilaterally terminate a contract. A customer must be aware of the circumstances in which a bank could terminate the contract upfront in their contract. No reasons need to be specified. However, a common reason used that the FSCA is aware of is “reputational damage”. Case law provides that this is an acceptable reason to close a bank account and that fairness is expected on both sides when it comes to contractual relationships.

The challenge that the FSCA is sitting with is that the conduct standards do not explicitly provide clients with the opportunity to make representations before their accounts are closed. The FSCA engages with banks around how they are implementing these requirements through testing the processes that the banks have in place, engaging with the banks, and analysing the complaints about bank account closures that reach them. The FSCA has not received many complaints about bank account closures. These complaints are generally dealt with by the Ombud for banking services. If the Committee wants to take this matter forward, it would be helpful to have the Banking Ombud present on the extent to which this may be an issue. The FSCA is also going to access the data from the Ombud to have a better sense of the extent of the issue.

The FSCA has noticed, through their engagements with banks, that while banks do abide by the requirement to provide notice, they are sometimes inconsistent with the grounds that they use for closing bank accounts. However, the FSCA has not received any substantive evidence that there has been a targeted closure of bank accounts. However, the FSCA does find some of those grounds vague.

Potential areas for improvement have been identified. The requirements often do not give enough detail and more guidance needs to be given to the industry to help them make these decisions. The FSCA is embarking on ongoing engagements with the industry to try and identify gaps in the standard. National Treasury is currently developing a more overarching piece of legislation called the Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill that aims to include strengthened fairness requirements.

The other challenge is that the FSCA does not have sufficient data to assess the legitimacy of some of the allegations around the arbitrary closure of bank accounts. Initiatives are in place. Some of these initiatives include targeted review to do a deep dive into the risk assessment process of the bank account closure processes. They will also be rolling out a detailed statutory reporting process for banks. This process will ask for details about the number of dormant bank accounts, the number of bank account closures, and the reasons therefore, as well as metrics about the complaints the banks received about potential discrimination or arbitrary closure of bank accounts.

There are certain positive requirements that will be imposed on banks going forward. Banks will be proactively required to identify and promote a culture that supports ethical behaviour. There is also a specific requirement in the Bill - in the future - that financial institutions including banks must take all reasonable steps to avoid harm to customers but to also make sure that they do this in a manner that is unbiased and does not unfairly discriminate against customers. Banks may not impose unreasonable barriers for customers to hold banks accountable because of expectations that they created in their contractual relationship.

It is important to balance the issue of customer fairness with the requirement for banks to implement specific risk assessment and litigation processes to deal with suspicious transactions.

She thanked the Committee and handed over to Ms Sameera Dawood, Divisional Head: AML/CFT, Prudential Authority.

Ms Dawood greeted the Committee and stated that banks are expected to identify the money laundering and terrorist financing risk associated with their clients. The banks should seek to mitigate and manage the risk associated with their clients and not arbitrarily close bank accounts. Risk assessment does not mean that the risk must be avoided entirely, it is more about managing it. De-risking may pose a threat to financial integrity in general and to the application of the risk-based approach. It will be prudent for a financial institution to perform an adequate risk assessment to determine the necessary level of due diligence and risk management as opposed to total avoidance. If the risk posed by a client is too great to manage successfully, the decision to de-risk should only be made after careful due diligence and consideration. It is important to note that the Prudential Authority does not partake in the decision-making process of the banks to exit customer relationships. Banks have their own processes for such matters. The contractual relationships and risk management procedures and policies of the banks will determine the decisions taken by the bank.

The code of banking practice requires reasonable prior notice before closing an account unless compelled by law or best practice, non-use of the account for a significant period, or reason to believe that the account is used for illegal purposes. This is only applicable to personal and small business accounts with a turnover of less than R5 million.

Discussion

Dr George believed that National Treasury and the FSCA’s presentations were clear. It seems that the banks are responding to the pressure for them to comply with the requirement to combat money laundering, illicit cash flows, and terrorist financing. He was of the view that banks often target the wrong people. He used FICA as an example, where salaried people are constantly asked for proof of income and proof of residence however, it is clear that many of these people have no additional income and are low risk. This does make life extremely difficult, especially when banks freeze these people’s accounts. It is problematic when banks do not target efficiently and go for the lowest-hanging fruit. This is not necessarily fair. He is anecdotally aware of banks freezing accounts without advising clients or providing reasons for the freezing. However, that is not confined to any demographic group so he did not believe that banks target people based on specific demographics. It seems that they see transactions in an account and they reach some kind of conclusion or their systems flags something and then a freeze happens. That seems to be what is happening. It is expected that banks would have heightened scrutiny seeing that greylisting is looming. It is good and well for us in South Africa to want to have a looser arrangement, but that would not be useful because the international regulations are pretty strict. We are heading for a major disaster if we do not comply with that. We need to bear international rules in mind, and it seems that is what the banks are doing. However, the banks need to be more specific when it targets and not unfairly impact people when they are actually not breaking the law as some others do. It is not the job of the government to interfere in the relationship between commercial banks and their clients. It is not Parliament’s function. This matter is before the court and the court must rule on it. He did not think that the Committee needs to look into how they can protect those people who are salaried employees and are low risk and to make the burden on them easier. At the same time, the burden on those who are committing these crimes should be made stronger.

Mr I Morolong (ANC) stated that the Committee needs to be aware that there is a matter before it that needs to be ventilated, less it becomes too academic and not deal with the matter at hand. He noted the FSCAs comments that it had not received many similar complaints. He sought clarity on whether the regulator had received this matter and if so, how they dealt with it.  He was of the view that Parliament should actually respond to the recommendation by Justice Zondo that existing legislation be changed, and that Parliament introduce new laws requiring banks to afford clients the opportunity to defend themselves. It is ordinary South Africans who bear the brunt of arbitrary bank closure because such actions lead to corporates being unable to pay salaries and their third-party obligations. He heard the FSCA and the Prudential Authority referring to joint standards on matters of mutual interest and guidance notices, these can go as far as interpretation rulings. How effective are these guidance rulings? He agreed that wholesale closure of bank accounts could potentially lead to opacity because there is little or no accountability, especially to the affected persons and entities. He wanted more details on how all these matters have been dealt with. This should not be reduced to an academic exercise, and the Committee needed to get into details. He suggested that the bank ombud must, as matter of urgency, shed light on this so the Committee can determine whether there are targeted demographics because at the moment it is unable to quantify whether there has been any specific focus on race or gender. It would be important for such a detailed presentation to be made soon.

Mr G Skosana (ANC) greeted the various stakeholders present in the meeting and stated that his questions have partially been covered by Mr Morolong. The demographics issue is worrying and should not be left without digging deep into the matter. It would be unfair that something like that happens after 28 years of democracy. The Committee should follow up on the matter and ensure that it is not happening. It would be serious discrimination for people to be targeted based on demographics. This matter should be followed up, as per Mr Morolong’s suggestion. Another worrying factor that he pointed out was that he heard the reasons given by National Treasury, the FSCA, and the PA about why banks close bank accounts in most cases because of the banks’ reputational damage and suspicious transactions. There is a matter raised by the attorneys wherein Democracy in Action’s bank account was closed because of their proximity to a certain prominent person. He asked how his proximity to a particular prominent person affects his account if there are no suspicious transactions happening. Just by the mere fact that he is close to a prominent person, why does that affect his account?  This needs to be looked into. His account should be judged on the basis that it has the potential to bring reputational damage to a bank or that suspicious transactions are taking place in his account. He requested an explanation as to why someone else’s standing can affect another individual’s account. The FSCA has indicated that the law provides that there are instances where banks are supposed to give their clients reasonable notice before their accounts are closed. It also indicated that there are instances when bank accounts will be closed even before informing their clients, perhaps due to signs of suspicious transactions. Say the banks decide to close the bank account without informing the client because of suspicious transactions, are they not supposed to give the reason to the client? Can they just shut the account down without giving reasons thereafter?

Mr W Wessels (FF+) stated that this matter that was spoken about at the beginning of the presentation is currently before the court and the Committee cannot at this stage pronounce if there was arbitrary closure of those accounts because this is a question before the court. The subjudice rule does apply to the proceedings of this Committee as contained in the standing rules and orders. It is an important issue to reflect on but the Committee should allow the court proceedings to go ahead and pronounce on the merits of these matters. The Committee cannot prematurely go into the merits of these cases; it would be highly irregular for this Committee. The Committee can talk about the broader principles, but it should let the court adjudicate this matter.

On the subjudice rule applying to the matter at hand, Adv Seboko replied that in the beginning of the presentation she state that they were not going into the merits of this pending court case. They were here because Parliament has the obligation to exercise its oversight function to ensure that banking institutions do not treat anyone unfairly. They listened to all the contributions of the regulatory bodies and found that the common thread between all the presentations is that the banking sector is not entitled to unilaterally and arbitrarily interrupt banking services. The Zondo Commission suggested, in line with Parliament’s oversight function, that the banking laws and the framework needs to be amended, especially that the audi alteram partem rule be followed and the clients be given opportunities to make representations when banks are closing their accounts. We are not discussing the matter as we respect the subjudice principle and other related principles.

Adv Frank Jenkins, Senior Parliamentary Legal Advisor, Constitutional and Legal Services Office, took the Committee to the previous Parliament where the transformation in the financial sector report was produced. The issue of the closure of bank accounts and the effect it has was briefly mentioned in that report. That report itself said that the Committee will review issues raised in that report. The report was very broad and did not state specific issues so there is scope to go into the specific issue of bank accounts. The letter that the Committee received and what he heard today speaks of the private law relationship between banks and their clients and the conduct standards that have been set sound more like guidelines than enforceable provisions. He indicated to the Committee that it has the legislative power to make a guide into law. That happened with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, where there were guidelines that were not followed by employers, and then Parliament eventually went out and set the guidelines in legislation. He made this connection to emphasise that bank accounts have become rather necessary for everyone to have. There is fertile ground to look at this from the perspective of trying to make this an equal relationship between banks and clients as the relationship is not equal at the moment. There have been other jurisdictions that have intervened in this matter. The issue of whether Parliament wants to intervene in this relationship is a policy issue, but it has been done.

Mr Davidson stated that a lot of the issues raised by the members - though they relate to the broad principles -  are the content of what is before the court. National Treasury cannot comment on the specific elements that have been raised. It is sufficient to say that, from a broad perspective it has tried to describe the broad policy framework and how the rules are being implemented. What was being described was a framework and a conduct standard. Conduct standards are secondary legislation and are not optional neither can they be ignored. On the Zondo commission recommendations, those specific recommendations will form part of a comprehensive response that will be provided to Parliament and will include areas where legislative amendments may be required. That of course will be coordinated and brought to Parliament in the coming weeks.

Ms Badat thanked Adv Seboko for her last emphasis that the intention was not to go to the merits of the matter. The FSCA is not in a position to discuss its position on the particular case at hand because the matter is subjudice. It would not be appropriate for the FSCA to discuss it at this point.

On Mr Morolong’s question about the interpretation ruling, she replied that the FSCA has issued guidance notes on occasion, sometimes with the Prudential Authority. They do find that these are effective in the sense of giving more practical guidance to institutions on how to apply and interpret the law. This goes to the fact that while the principles are clear in the conduct standard, they are a bit general and it might be useful to develop some guidance to ensure that the way it is applied to the banks is consistent.

On the enforceability of the conduct standard, she emphasised that the conduct standards are not guidance. They are subordinate and enforceable. The FSCA can enforce penalties should it find substantive evidence of non-compliance with the standards. The distinction that we are trying to draw is that this does not alter the relationship between banks and their clients. At this point, the law does not go as far as saying that the regulator can intervene and prevent the termination of the relationship or require them to enter into a relationship. The FSCA recognises that there are certain requirements in the conduct standards and the regulator is only empowered to act insofar as the law stands today. There have been very important issues raised today. The discussion at the policy level for Parliament is whether the standards and legislative frameworks as they are right now, go far enough and whether legislative intervention is necessary. As it stands, the FSCA will act within the mandate and the law as it currently stands.

Ms Dawood stated that the Prudential Authority is also not in a position to discuss the issue seeing that it is subjudice.

On greylisting, she stated that there is a lot of attention and scrutiny on South Africa at the moment. Progress has been made. In terms of the application of a risk-based approach, the expectation from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is that there is an effective risk assessment in place when dealing with clients that are followed by the various institutions that are expected to comply with the Financial Intelligence Centre Act’s requirements. It essentially boils down to the ability of entities to adequately risk rate their customers and apply the commensurate due diligence measures that may be applicable which then allows for differentiation between legal, low-risk, and high-risk customers.

Mr Christopher Malan, Executive Manager Compliance & Prevention, FIC, apologised for joining the meeting late. The FIC aligns itself with the views expressed by the regulators. It is a difficult time for the FIC to be appearing before this Committee. All the regulators are parties to the litigation.  While they discuss principles, the same principles are subject to court proceedings. The FIC did want to participate with other regulators to fully ventilate these issues. That can be done when the court proceedings have run its course the issue can be discussed at the level of detail that the Committee members have requested. If it is afforded that opportunity at the appropriate time, it will be much wiser as to how to deal with this challenging issue of the risk management of the bank-customer relationship.

The Chairperson thanked all the stakeholders and stated that the Committee should not lose sight of the fact that Parliament derives its mandate from chapter four of the Constitution. This is an elected body that represents the people of South Africa and is responsible to oversee the adherence to human dignity, equality, and all the other rights enshrined in the Bill of rights. If members of the public approach Parliament with an issue that they believe parliament can attend to, Parliament cannot close its doors and direct the public to the judiciary. Parliament cannot always outsource the issues that it has to deal with to another organ of government. Parliament has a role to play. In this case, there are complaints about racial discrimination and arbitrary closure of bank accounts. Parliament has made it very clear that it is not going to deal with the case under review. However, many people are raising this issue and they do not have access to legal representation for their issues to be attended to. Parliament has to refer these matters to entities that have been tasked with dealing with these issues. The state entities have to ensure that they execute their responsibilities. The case can be dealt with by the courts, however, there are still issues raised by members of the public about the arbitrary closure of their bank accounts. We will have to follow up in this regard and invite the Banking Ombud and the Banking Association of South Africa to this platform so that we deal with the policy matters. We cannot outsource our responsibility to the judiciary. The legacy report of the transformation of the financial sector needs to be attended to. This will be dealt with in the next term.

He thanked all the stakeholders that were present and adjourned the meeting.

Download as PDF

You can download this page as a PDF using your browser's print functionality. Click on the "Print" button below and select the "PDF" option under destinations/printers.

See detailed instructions for your browser here.

Share this page: