The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) expresses profound concern and outrage over reports that the Competition Commission of South Africa is investigating major commercial banks for possible collusion in the setting of the prime lending rate, a critical benchmark that determines the cost of credit for millions of South Africans.
If these allegations are confirmed, they would constitute not merely a breach of competition law, but a deliberate and systematic act of economic violence against workers, small businesses, students, and working-class households who already endure the consequences of a deeply unequal and financialised economy.
For decades, South Africa’s banking sector has operated as a highly concentrated oligopoly, dominated by a small group of powerful institutions, Standard Bank, Absa Group, FirstRand, Nedbank, and Investec. Collectively, their decisions shape borrowing costs, investment patterns, and ultimately the material conditions of life for the majority.
The possibility that these institutions may have coordinated the prime lending rate exposes, once again, how concentrated corporate power manipulates key economic levers to maximise private profit at the direct expense of the public good.
The prime lending rate is not an abstract technical variable. It determines what ordinary people pay on home loans, vehicle finance, student debt, credit cards, and small-business loans. Even marginal increases translate into billions of rands extracted from workers’ wages, squeezing disposable income, suppressing consumption, increasing business failures, and deepening poverty and inequality.
For working-class families already trapped in a cycle of debt, any proven collusion would amount to institutionalised theft, a silent but brutal transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, enforced through financial markets rather than force of arms.
SAFTU further notes with anger that these allegations arise in the context of a long and disturbing pattern of misconduct in South Africa’s financial sector, including foreign exchange manipulation, bond-market price-fixing, exclusionary and discriminatory lending practices, and repeated regulatory breaches.
These are not isolated scandals; they confirm what the labour movement has long warned, that South Africa’s financial system is structurally predatory, oriented toward extraction and speculation rather than productive investment, development, and social need.
The South African Reserve Bank and National Treasury of South Africa, both of which claim to defend financial stability, transparency, and competition, cannot continue to wash their hands of responsibility. Their policy choices and regulatory failures have consistently shielded financial capital while workers endure rising interest rates, stagnant wages, job losses, collapsing public services, and deepening household indebtedness.
Instead of acting as guardians of the financial elite, these institutions must be held accountable for failing to protect the broader economy and the livelihoods of millions.
SAFTU therefore calls on the Competition Commission to conduct a thorough, independent, and fully transparent investigation, with all relevant evidence placed in the public domain and with severe penalties imposed should collusion be proven.
In addition,SAFTU demands:
- The nationalisation, under democratic worker and public control, of all banks found guilty of participating in a prime lending rate cartel.
- The criminal prosecution of executives and officials implicated in interest-rate manipulation, subject to due process and the outcome of investigations.
- A comprehensive inquiry into the governance and pricing architecture of the prime lending system, including the respective roles of the Reserve Bank, National Treasury, and major commercial banks.
- The establishment of a genuinely public banking system, including the urgent strengthening of Postbank and the development of worker and community controlled cooperative banks to provide affordable credit and dismantle the monopoly power of the “Big Four.”
- Far-reaching financial-sector reform to redirect lending toward productive investment in manufacturing, housing, infrastructure, public services, and small enterprises, rather than speculative profiteering.
- Full restitution for consumers who may have been overcharged as a result of anti-competitive conduct, including mechanisms for direct reimbursement where collusion is confirmed.
Should the investigation confirm cartel behaviour, it will further expose the hypocrisy of a capitalist system that endlessly demands “discipline,” “sacrifice,” and “belt-tightening” from workers, while allowing powerful financial institutions to rig markets, manipulate prices, and evade accountability.
Workers are told to accept high borrowing costs as “market discipline,” while the real architects of those markets operate above the law.
SAFTU reiterates its long-standing position that South Africa’s financial sector must be democratised, decisively regulated, and fundamentally repurposed to serve social and developmental objectives. The concentration of financial power in a few private hands is incompatible with economic justice, democracy, and genuine development.
SAFTU stands ready to mobilise its affiliates and allies in defence of consumers, in pursuit of accountability, and in the struggle for a financial system that places workers and communities, not profit and greed, at its centre.
Until such a transformation is realised, South Africa will remain hostage to a financial elite whose unchecked power undermines every effort to build equality, dignity, and shared prosperity.
A statement was issued on behalf of the SAFTU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
For media inquiries, contact the National Spokesperson at:
Newton Masuku
newtonm@saftu.org.za
0661682157
Media Officer
Asive Dyani
0719019564
