{"id":868459,"date":"2026-08-03T09:26:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T07:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=868459"},"modified":"2026-08-03T09:26:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T07:26:38","slug":"r2-9-billion-crackdown-on-businesses-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/868459\/r2-9-billion-crackdown-on-businesses-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"R2.9 billion crackdown on businesses in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South Africa\u2019s finance regulator imposed record penalties as it sought to deter misconduct and boost trust in the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Financial Sector Conduct Authority levied more than R2.89 billion of fines in the year through 31 March, compared with R119.8 million a year earlier, it said in a report on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most serious penalty was in excess of R2 billion levied against online-trading platform Banxso for deepfake advertising and misappropriating client funds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The authority also withdrew Banxso\u2019s licenses, debarred key company officials for 30 years and forwarded the matter to prosecuting authorities to pursue a criminal case, Divisional Executive of Enforcement Gerhard van Deventer said at a briefing Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The FSCA\u2019s actions have contributed to South Africa\u2019s hard-won exit last year from the global Financial Action Task Force\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-10-24\/south-africa-nigeria-exit-global-watchdog-s-dirty-money-list\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dirty-money list<\/a>&nbsp;in 2025, with the nation demonstrating a revamped regulatory framework and improved compliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The regulator concluded 678 investigations during the period, the highest number of cases finalised in a single year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It debarred 68 individuals for failing so-called fit-and-proper standards, withdrew 14 licenses and issued 140 public warnings.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The FSCA imposed a R358.75 million administrative penalty on Stehan Grobler, a former executive at collapsed global retailer Steinhoff International Holdings NV, for the publication of false statements.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cA broader market-abuse probe is still ongoing,\u201d Van Deventer said. \u201cIn the coming year, we will eventually get to the point where we can put that case behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The regulator also imposed a R212 million fine on Medbond Group for investor harm after the company marketed fictitious investment products to investors that resulted in losses of about R194 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa\u2019s finance regulator imposed record penalties as it sought to deter misconduct and boost trust in the industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":865343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2084179219798446143","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2165266214293778","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18083350976682716","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[15212],"class_list":["post-868459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-fsca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868459","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":868460,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868459\/revisions\/868460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}