This above story headline was from 2022 and after reading this story today tells you they have not started or do not know where to start on how to regulate crypto. I think not knowing is closer to the truth.
On the 15th May the Pretoria High Court spanked the South African reserve bank for having outdated or as the judge put it "antiquated exchange control regulations" when it came to foreign currencies. The judge told them in no uncertain terms that the SARB had failed crypto investors by not regulating crypto properly.
This all came up in a court case regarding Standard Bank liquidating a client of theirs who owed them R41 million only for the SARB Financial Surveillance Division known as (FinSurv) swoop in and grab all the companies assets. The bank said this was illegal as they had rights to those assets first as this was their client.
How FinSurv got involved was they were aware that this company had bought Bitcoins and sent them outside the country to another exchange. FinSurv are under the assumption this was illegal as this defied the foreign currency trading laws which date back to 1961. This you have to laugh about as this is what we are dealing with and Standard Bank rightfully was fighting that no laws had been broken and why the to be liquidated assets are their property and not the SARB's.
The judge used their own pathetic case against the SARB who stated that cryptocurrencies are nothing more than a code on a digital ledger. The judge told them that it was all down to interpretation on what you call currency and whether this violated exchange control laws. He stated that cryptocurrency is not money as we know it and therefore it is not foreign exchange either. The laws are outdated and need to be adjusted bringing them up to date so the likes of cryptocurrency can be regulated accordingly. He went on to slap the SARB again saying they had 15 years to deal with this and they have done nothing.
You ask yourself is this still delay tactics or just pure ignorance on their part or just laziness. Most likely a combination of all 3.
FinSurv were the ones who said anyone buying crypto on a foreign exchange or storing their tokens outside the country were breaking South Africa's foreign exchange rules. Currently the SARB has made no decisions on what crypto assets breach the foreign exchange rules. They are fully aware their delaying the process is holding back crypto investors. When asked directly the SARB said it knew it was making life difficult for everyone. Good to know what you are dealing with and clueless muppets springs to mind with this group. The tech has left them in the dust and this will take years of trying to get them up to speed as they clearly have no idea what they are up against.
Fortunately or unfortunately depending how we look at this the SARB has no clue on what they are doing when it comes to crypto and I kind of like it as it is for now. When I was at the Binance conference they were waiting on a license which would allow them to operate in SA legally and that looks further away than ever which is good news. Binance said they would not hand over personal details of those using their exchange, but I have not used them since as there is always risk. Having the SARB on your back when they do not have defined laws and make it up as they go is a danger to all crypto investors in SA.
Posted Using INLEO
