By Sipho Tshabalala
In 1994, South Africa declared the end of legislated racial oppression. We embraced a new constitution, cast our hopes into the democratic wind, and dared to dream of an inclusive economy. Yet, beneath the polished veneer of corporate South Africa, a different reality festers, one where banks, not ballots, determine who rises and who is erased.
At the centre of this quiet rebellion against democracy is a term so vague, so unaccountable, it sounds harmless. It is called “reputational risk.” But make no mistake: this is not risk management. This is economic warfare.
Nedbank has turned reputational risk into a weapon, a scalpel that cuts deep, but leaves no visible wounds. Under its cover, livelihoods are extinguished without a trial, and businesses are exiled without a hearing. No charges, no convictions, just spreadsheets and sealed meetings. The process is bloodless. The impact is brutal.
When a bank closes your account in the 21st century, it doesn’t just inconvenience you, it unpersons you. It locks you out of the economy, disqualifies you from civil society, and pushes you into the shadow of survival. The right to bank has become the silent gateway to freedom itself. And Nedbank, it seems, has appointed itself the gatekeeper.
What is most chilling is that reputational risk has no legal definition, no test in court, no statute behind it. It is an arbitrary hammer, swung in darkness and defended with corporate jargon. It allows a handful of executives to decide whose name is clean and whose future ends.
In the United States, long maligned for its corporate ruthlessness, even there, lawmakers have drawn the line. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) recently outlawed the use of reputational risk to deny banking services. Why? Because it was being used to silence political dissent, not protect financial systems. South Africa, instead of following suit, has chosen to weaponize it further.
And no institution in this country has abused it with more audacity than Nedbank.
This is the same Nedbank that has its own skeletons rattling in its green-branded closet. According to the Zondo Commission, Nedbank’s dealings with Regiments Capital—one of the key engines of state capture, were not incidental. They were integral. In 2015 and 2016, Nedbank facilitated irregular interest rate swap transactions for Transnet. These weren’t simple accounting errors. They were sophisticated schemes designed to bleed billions from the state into private pockets.
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has detailed how Nedbank enabled the movement of public money through dubious arrangements with municipalities and state-owned entities. The legal fallout is still unfolding. Yet Nedbank, somehow, is still considered fit to pass judgment on others.
So here is the uncomfortable truth: if reputational risk were applied fairly, Nedbank itself would be unbanked.
But fairness is not the point. Reputational risk, in the way Nedbank applies it, is a euphemism for economic profiling. It is how monopoly capital polices its borders. It is not due diligence, it is ideological enforcement.
Take Dr. Iqbal Survé and the Sekunjalo Group. A Black-owned investment company, spanning sectors from media to fisheries, employing thousands, and never convicted of a single crime. Yet it has been systematically targeted by banks, with Nedbank as the vanguard. No court judgment. No fraud charges. Just reputational innuendo, amplified by a media echo chamber and rubber-stamped by corporate collusion.
The call by the Resistance Against Impunity Movement (RAIM) for U.S. sanctions on South African banks who use reputational risk as code to close bank accounts is not extremism, it is accountability. If our own institutions refuse to act, then international pressure must fill the void. The U.S. has sanctioned banks in other countries for less. Nedbank should not be immune.
What we need now is legislative clarity. Parliament must outlaw reputational risk as a standalone reason to deny banking services. The FSCA and Reserve Bank must enforce transparency and audit trails. And we need an independent banking ombudsman with real teeth, not a ceremonial title holder sipping tea with CEOs.
Because today it is Sekunjalo. Tomorrow, it will be another Black startup. A township NGO. A journalist. A student.
Nedbank does not get to play God with access to the economy. If we allow this trend to continue, we are not just preserving inequality, we are rebranding apartheid with cleaner language and better marketing.
This is not just a financial debate. It is a battle for the soul of our democracy. And make no mistake, the frontline is the right to bank.
* Sipho Tshabalala is an independent writer, contributor and analyst.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.