Verticals

SARB to issue crypto advice. Any day now

It's been a long time coming, but the SA Reserve Bank is soon going to be providing some guidance on how banks should treat crypto.

19 March 2020

What was behind FNB’s decision to terminate crypto-linked accounts last year? ITWeb recently reported a source as saying Nedbank would follow suit. This does, however, remain a rumour, and at the time of writing in early February, Nedbank had not made any statement about the possible closure of accounts.

FNB, for its part, said in November that the closure was a ‘a prudent course of action following a comprehensive review of the potential risks currently associated with these entities, particularly given that appropriate regulatory frameworks are not yet in place’. For all its talk of innovation and use of financial technology, it’s an extremely conservative position to take, considering the forward-thinking nature of the SARB, as well the country’s other financial institutions and crypto exchanges. Perhaps FNB was spooked by something else, but it’s not clear what that was. And once there is a framework, it’s just going to have to roll back its position. There’s also the fact that South Africans are crypto fans, with an estimated 10% of us holding it. This may have something to do with the rand.

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