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Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan needs to reassure South Africa that his “greedy monsters” remark was not intended for local banks. If he does not clarify what he meant, his statement could contribute to increased uncertainty around our regulation of banks and could even compromise their credit ratings, leading to knock-on costs for consumers.

Press reports today suggest that the Finance Minister has said that the banks “played a role in the financial meltdown by offering mortgage loans to people who could not afford to pay”. The reality is that South African banks had limited exposure to the dodgy investments that set off the global financial crisis of 2008, and robust regulation ensured that our country was insulated from the first-round effects of that crisis.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index 2011/12 rates South Africa as second in the world in terms of the soundness of banks (behind Canada) and third in the world for availability of financial services (behind Switzerland and Luxembourg)

Instead of creating uncertainty with statements such as this, Minister Gordhan should engage with the Reserve Bank and reassure South Africans that that they are satisfied that local arrangements for the setting of the Johannesburg Interbank Agreed Rate (JIBAR) have not been, and would not be, subject to similar manipulations currently being exposed in the setting of the interbank rates in the British banking system.

I have today submitted Parliamentary questions to the Minister in this regard.