South African Reserve Bank confirms which Banks Act guidance notes remain effective for 2025

The South African Reserve Bank issued a Banks Act guidance note clarifying the status of previously issued guidance notes for banks, branches of foreign institutions, controlling companies, eligible institutions and their auditors. The note confirms which legacy guidance notes remain effective for the ensuing year and deems all other previously issued guidance notes to be withdrawn, terminated or replaced unless explicitly confirmed. The guidance reiterates that the first guidance note of each year serves as the formal notification mechanism and that any guidance note carried forward retains its original number and date. It then lists the guidance notes that remain in force, covering topics including personal account trading, electronic communications with supervisors, stress testing, covered bonds, foreign exchange settlement risk, risk data aggregation and reporting, model and approach approval processes for credit, market and operational risk, ICAAP expectations, expected credit loss implications, liquidity and high-quality liquid assets, corporate governance, capital arbitrage transactions, cyber resilience, cloud computing and offshoring of data, committed liquidity facilities, extensive financial crime and proliferation financing controls, climate-related governance and risk practices and climate-related disclosures, and criteria for identifying interest rate risk in the banking book outlier banks. Institutions are requested to retain copies of the effective guidance notes, make the guidance note available to their auditors, and return an acknowledgement of receipt signed by both the chief executive officer and the auditors to the Prudential Authority.