Viceroy Research has continued to call for Capitec to be placed into curatorship. The registrar of banks, housed within the South African Reserve Bank, has not reacted to the short-seller’s research (or should we say opinions) on the reasons for this call. It may be worth examining the reasons for this. In its latest salvo against the bank, Viceroy says it believes "Capitec should be placed under curatorship in order to protect its borrowers, who are comprised of the most financially at-risk demographic in SA". The continued call for a curatorship detracts from some valid points in Viceroy’s research — first raised by the Financial Mail in 2016 — about possible reckless lending at the bank and the financial burden it places on customers. A study of the small banks crisis of the early 2000s and the Reserve Bank’s actions would tell you it intervenes in the interests of depositors. When banks such as New Republic and Saambou failed, the registrar stepped in to protect depositors, neve...

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