{"id":689771,"date":"2023-06-04T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2023-06-04T07:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=689771"},"modified":"2023-06-02T16:24:01","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T14:24:01","slug":"warning-over-bank-reversals-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/689771\/warning-over-bank-reversals-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Warning over bank reversals in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Ombud for banking services in South Africa says banks do not have to reverse transactions despite requests from a client.<\/p>\n<p>In its <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/688689\/the-most-complained-about-banks-in-south-africa-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2022 annual report<\/a>, the Ombud looked at a recent case brought before it regarding a transaction reversal dispute.<\/p>\n<p>In this case, the complainant booked with a travel company and paid via an immediate transfer.<\/p>\n<p>However, the travel company was liquidated three weeks before the date of travel.<\/p>\n<p>The bank said it could not reverse the payment as the travel company was liquidated, informing the complainant to contact the liquidator.<\/p>\n<p>The Ombud said that the evidence showed that the complainant entered into a valid contractual agreement with the travel company, meaning that the payment was not made erroneously.<\/p>\n<p>It concluded that ordering a reversal request on the travel company would serve no purpose.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, the liquidator would be prohibited from allowing the refund as it cannot prefer one creditor over another.<\/p>\n<p>This meant that the bank cannot refund the complainant as creditors in a similar situation were not reimbursed, with it impossible for the insolvent company to refund all its creditors as its liabilities exceeded its assets.<\/p>\n<p>The Ombud also stressed that the complaint would still not be eligible for a reversal if they paid via a card transaction, as the liquidator would still have to deal with the matter.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, the Ombud did not find in the complaint&#8217;s favour.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of principle, the Ombud concluded that banks are unable to take responsibility for reversing a transaction from a customer who entered into a valid contractual relationship with a merchant &#8211; even if the merchant is later liquidated.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/685073\/all-the-bank-branches-where-you-can-get-your-smart-id-and-passport\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">All the bank branches where you can get your Smart ID and passport<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ombud for banking services looks at a 2022 case where a complainant did not see their transation reverse, despite the merchant going into liquidation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":641769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-689771","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\/689771","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689771"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":693663,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689771\/revisions\/693663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}