{"id":476484,"date":"2021-03-17T10:44:07","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T08:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=476484"},"modified":"2021-03-19T11:50:33","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T09:50:33","slug":"government-wants-to-enforce-new-bee-rules-at-banks-insurers-and-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/476484\/government-wants-to-enforce-new-bee-rules-at-banks-insurers-and-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"Government wants to enforce new BEE rules at banks, insurers and funds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Deputy Finance minister David Masondo says that the South Africa&#8217;s financial and asset management sector will see a transformation push through the introduction of the draft Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/finance-watchdog-to-get-bee-role-says-david-masondo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BusinessDay<\/a> <\/strong>webinar, Masondo said that changes included in the bill <strong>will make transformation an explicit function of the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Masondo said it will also be a requirement for financial institutions, such as banks, to have transformation plans that demonstrate their compliance with existing Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) legislation.<\/p>\n<p>The FSCA will also be given authority to enforce compliance, he said. The FSCA will be empowered to enforce and regulate:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Transformation;<\/li>\n<li>Operations;<\/li>\n<li>Culture;<\/li>\n<li>Product Design;<\/li>\n<li>Selling;<\/li>\n<li>Marketing;<\/li>\n<li>Internal Procedures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The FSCA has regulatory power over any financial institutions that are licensed in terms of a financial sector law, including banks, insurers, retirement funds and administrators, and market infrastructures.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From the side of the state, what motivates us, what informs what we&#8217;re doing is a constitutional imperative for transformation,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The equality clause in the constitution requires the state to undertake measures to transform South Africa in all facets of our society. We are also motivated by inclusive growth.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The changing nature of BEE\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Masondo&#8217;s comments come after Business group Sakeliga noted a shift in how BEE regulations have functioned in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>In earlier phases, BEE was generally focused on the procurement relationship between the state and providers of products of services to it, said Piet le Roux, Sakeliga chief executive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLately, in codes such as the legal sector code, BEE regulation jettisons the requirement of the state as a transacting party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe new approach is to\u00a0regulate for BEE requirements regardless of state involvement, which poses serious implications for freedom to trade and freedom to procure professional services,\u201d Le Roux said.<\/p>\n<p>Le Roux pointed to the proposed Property Practitioners Act and a draft code for the legal sector as legislative developments with a similar application of BEE.<\/p>\n<p><strong>New laws<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The shift in thinking around BEE is being driven by the Employment Equity Amendment Bill, which aims to accelerate the rate of transformation in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The bill, which is currently before parliament, will empower the minister of Labour to regulate the setting of sector-specific employment equity targets across most of South Africa\u2019s major industries.<\/p>\n<p>Under the proposed legislation, the minister will first publish a notice in the gazette identifying national economic sectors which will be impacted.<\/p>\n<p>After consulting the individual sectors, and on the advice of the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE), the minister may set numerical employment equity targets for any sector or part of a sector by notice in a gazette.<\/p>\n<p>The department said that the notice may set different numerical targets for\u00a0different occupational levels, sub-sectors or regions.<\/p>\n<p>The bill stipulates that a draft of any notice that the minister proposes must be published in the gazette and interested parties must be permitted at least 30 days to comment.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the factors which the minister will consider when setting sector targets include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The qualification, skills and experience required to be employed in a particular occupational level;<\/li>\n<li>The rate of turn-over and natural attrition in a sector;<\/li>\n<li>Recruitment and promotional trends within a sector.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/476386\/governments-plan-to-save-south-africa-including-changes-for-visas-businesses-and-reducing-load-shedding\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Government\u2019s plan to save South Africa \u2013 including changes for visas, businesses, and reducing load shedding<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deputy Finance minister David Masondo says that the South Africa&#8217;s financial and asset management sector will see a transformation push through the introduction of the draft Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":248059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-476484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476484"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477336,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476484\/revisions\/477336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}