Capitec slapped with R28 million fine after compliance failures
One of South Africa's biggest banks, Capitec, has been fined R28 million by the Prudential Authority (PA) for failing to meet several requirements under South Africa’s anti-money laundering laws.
This comes after an inspection found weaknesses in the bank’s customer due diligence, enhanced and ongoing due diligence, employee training and controls around financial sanctions and terrorist property reporting.
The PA said Capitec failed to properly conduct due diligence on sampled client files and did not have adequate processes and controls in place to manage certain money-laundering and terrorist-financing risks.
The bank was also found to have shortcomings in its training of employees and in the approval and documentation of some of its screening and reporting procedures.
Of the R28 million penalty, R5.5 million has been conditionally suspended for 36 months.
"The administrative sanctions imposed on Capitec consist of five cautions not to repeat the conduct that led to the non-compliance, and a financial penalty totalling R28 million, of which R5.5 million is conditionally suspended for a period of 36 months as from 13 October 2025", the PA said.
The PA also said Capitec had cooperated with the regulator and had taken steps to address the compliance deficiencies and control weaknesses identified during the inspection.
The sanctions relate to five areas of non-compliance under the Financial Intelligence Centre Act, including customer due diligence, enhanced due diligence, ongoing due diligence, employee training and the bank’s risk management and compliance programme.
The regulator imposed a R10 million penalty for the customer due diligence failures, R5 million each for the enhanced and ongoing due diligence failures, R3 million for employee training and a further R5 million for shortcomings in the bank’s policies and controls relating to terrorist property reporting and financial sanctions.
"Capitec has cooperated with the PA to remediate the identified compliance deficiencies and control weaknesses," the PA added.
The PA found that Capitec had failed to conduct adequate customer due diligence on sampled client files.
The bank was also found to have failed to conduct adequate enhanced due diligence and ongoing due diligence on some of its sampled client files.
In addition, the regulator found that Capitec had failed to provide ongoing training to sampled employees.
