VBS bank could be saved, Tito Mboweni suggests in budget speech
The mutual bank's pre-heist model is appropriate to encourage transformation of the banking sector, the finance minister told MPs
Finance minister Tito Mboweni has given the strongest indication yet that the embattled VBS Mutual Bank could be saved. Various ANC MPs and those from the EFF have called for the bank, which was placed under curatorship in March after looting by executives led to a liquidity crisis, to be recapitalised. “As we deal with VBS matter it is important we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater … the model of VBS [encouraging a savings culture and uplifting poorer communities] … before the great heist was correct … as part of the model to transform banking sector. We will work with regulator to ensure that that the model doesn’t disappear," Mboweni said as he delivered his medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS). However, he added that the “perpetrators of the great bank heist must be locked up after a fair trial”. The investigation into VBS's affairs has shown how executives looted nearly R2bn from the bank, with a number of senior provincial ANC politicians also implicated in w...
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