Cabinet has approved a bill aimed at "protecting" the independence of the South African Reserve Bank to prevent a fringe group of shareholders from influencing the bank's decision making capabilities, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said in Pretoria on Monday.

Gordhan said at a media briefing that it had come to the bank's attention that a "fringe group" was attempting to improperly mobilise their shares as well as share profits and assets in an attempt to influence decisions.

"It has come to the attention of the government that a number of shareholders are involved in activities which could undermine the bank's independence," Gordhan said.

"Cabinet considers this to be unacceptable and has agreed that urgent legislative steps must be taken to protect the Bank's independence."

The Reserve Bank's shareholders are limited to own 10 000 shares, with voting restricted to one vote for every 200 shares held. Each shareholder is allowed a maximum of 50 votes.

Gordhan said that one of the objectives of the South African Reserve Bank Amendment Bill was to prevent abuse and the formation of voting blocks by the Bank's "limited number" of shareholders.

"The amendments to the act seek to curb circumvention of this limit by introducing the concept of 'associate' and 'close relative' and extend the restriction to such associated and close relatives.

"The purpose is to ensure that no shareholder can create a 'bloc' of voting interests, thereby exerting influence that was clearly intended to be limited by setting a maximum number of shares that could be owned and voted on by any individual or institution."

Gordhan said that some of the fringe group had said, "they would like the legal status of the Bank to change and once that changed they are entitled to reserves or money that the bank has accumulated".

"That was not... the intention of the act and neither is that how central banks operate," Gordhan said.

He said that the timeline for the speeding up of the approval of the bill was largely a result of the recent activities of this fringe group.

"The more clarity we have and the quicker we have it, the better - on those issues that pertain to the kinds of activities that have been going on recently.

"We want to make sure that all this unnecessary immobilisation is dealt with once and for all and to make it impossible for anybody in the immediate term to execute any of those ideas."

He said that the government would look closely at the act in the next three to six months to iron out any problems "that may have been missed this time".

"The review of the legislative framework is long overdue and will be worked on by all constituencies so we can place the bank on a proper independent footing," Gordhan said.

"That will take care of anything we may have missed this time."

Another objective of the bill included allowing for the nomination of directors - seven of whom were private stakeholders - to a broader base of the South African public.

The act would also provide for the establishment of a panel for the election of directors and to define clear criteria regarding when people should be disqualified from serving.

In March, Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus said in a letter to the bank's shareholders that the institution currently "faces a challenge, ostensibly lacking in principle and evidently driven by the self-interested profit motive, of a very small minority of shareholders".

"The reason that a single shareholder may not hold more than 10 000 shares in the bank is primarily to prevent individuals and companies or other entities from exercising undue influence over the control of the SARB," she wrote.

"You will, I believe, agree with me that those among the bank's shareholders who do not subscribe to the legal framework and national consensus described above cannot claim to be acting in the interests either of the bank, the people of South Africa, or the nation's economy."