South Africa might have experienced a major banking crisis at the close of the week if authorities had not moved swiftly to assuage panic around Viceroy Research's report titled Capitec: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. On the back of the international report, which questioned the bank's lending practices, panicked depositors started withdrawing their money as Capitec's CEO, Gerrie Fourie, and his team tried to extinguish fires. The Reserve Bank stepped in quickly to back the bank, saying it was sufficiently capitalised with adequate liquidity. Capitec's executive committee met as early as Monday when the microlender's shares came under pressure, falling 8%. The activity came a day before a report by the US-based analysts hit markets, which would see the bank's shares fall as much as 25%. The short-seller said it did not buy Capitec's growth story and that it was effectively a "loan shark" that had massively overstated its loan book to the tune of R11-billion. Fourie spent the week manag...
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