While there has been little, if no intervention from the South African government with ever-rising concerns about South Africa’s banks accused of tempering with the ideals of freedom of speech through targeted closure of banking facilities for among others, the Sekunjalo Investments Holdings, the UK government is taking bold steps to end the banks’ abuse of targeted individuals.
Similar to the recent events in South Africa where political parties, unions, and other formations have been expressing their concerns about the banks wielding too much power, politically meddling, and accounts closures of certain individuals, banks in the UK are being taken to task.
This follows the closure of the accounts belonging to the former leader of the UK Independence Party Nigel Farage based on what he described as “personal and political grounds.”
UK Treasury Minister Andrew Griffith has taken the matter seriously and met with the 19 bank bosses for a summit on Wednesday this week to discuss concerns over denied access to banking due to politics.
This has also triggered the Information Commissioner’s Office John Edwards addressing the banks to “remind them of their responsibility to the public” after the ousting of NatWest Bank chief executive Alison Rose who became the first high-profile business casualty to be removed for allegedly closing Farage’s banking accounts for political reasons.
In the document, Edwards said: “Banks should not be holding inaccurate information, they should not be using the information in a way that is unduly unexpected, and they should not be holding any more information than is necessary.
“Any suggestion that this trust has been betrayed will be concerning for a bank’s customers, and for regulators like myself,” Edwards said.
Meanwhile, Griffith made it clear that it was not the job of banks to tell people what to think or what political party to support.
“The government’s been extremely clear on this, in a democracy that relies upon freedom of expression … that is not a legitimate thing for a bank to remove someone’s access to a bank account,” said Edwards.
According to Sky News, a readout of the meeting’s conclusions suggested the industry had agreed to work with the government and regulators on the implementation of new rules aimed at strengthening protections on account terminations or access to accounts.
“Attendees from the sector acknowledged that recent events had impacted upon public trust for the whole sector and expressed their clear commitment to government policy on account closure and to act quickly to restore confidence,” the document said.
Farage called for the NatWest board to resign following the resignation of Rose.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, during the BRICS Youth Summit held in Durban last week, Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma decried the lack of control in the financing and banking system, saying that in South Africa “we are forced to kneel before five banks”.
“We need an alternative public banking and finance system beyond the dominant one, and we need it urgently. The New Development Bank is thus a step in the right direction, but we need to domesticate alternative banking as a matter of urgency,” said Dlamini Zuma.
Shockingly, in contrast to the voices opposed to the closure of the Independent Media accounts, the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) withdrew its support for Independent Media in its battle against Standard Bank, which had threatened to close its accounts.
In a lengthy interview with Independent Media last year, Makhudu Sefara who had been approached for comment in his capacity as Sanef senior leader responsible for protecting media freedom expressed his views about the bank violating media freedom saying among other things that “Shutting down a bank account of a media organisation is something that would go against media freedom, it is something that would destroy a media company.”
However, Sanef distanced itself from Sefara’s utterances saying the IOL’s article “is riddled with inaccuracies and deliberate misrepresentations to create a false impression that Sanef has taken a position on Standard Bank’s decision to close down the bank accounts”.
“Consistent with this position, Sanef is not in a position to speculate as to why major banks are closing accounts of Sekunjalo Group, the owners of Independent Media.
“Frankly, Sanef does not have enough information to venture an opinion, let alone speculate about the merits of the decision,” read Sanef’s statement.
Since the statement did not elaborate on the article’s inaccuracies, it left an impression that it had turned against its own chairperson of media freedom.
This gave the impression that Sanef does not want to be caught in the crossfire of the battle between Standard Bank and Independent Media since both the forum and the bank seem to have some financial deals.