Cybercrime keeps the banking ombud busy
There’s nothing like a new technological advance to stimulate the inventiveness of the cyber-criminal,” says John Myburgh SC, who chairs the Ombudsman for Banking Services.
The ever more sophisticated and widespread use of technology by banks and their customers, and by criminals, is one of the factors that has made internet banking the secondlargest contributor to the ombud’s caseload. It accounts for 20%, with phishing, cellphone transactions and SIMcard swaps the main culprits.
Security has become a major issue and not just when it comes to the internet or cellphone banking: ATM-related complaints still top the list of cases at the ombud, even though the numbers have come down somewhat in the latest year.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the statistics is that more than half of the ombud’s cases were fraud-related, with most of those customers victims of scams, rather than of maladministration, which in the main are resolved in favour of the banks, not the customers.
The 15-year-old Ombudsman for Banking Services is a voluntary entity to which the banks sign up. Unfortunately for customers, fewer than a quarter of cases went in their favour in 2016, in part because many of the cases involved fraud or complainants who could not manage their debt obligations.
But the ombud, which in 2016 dealt with 5,033 disputes, plays an important role in helping to ensure that banks treat customers fairly and its role will become even more pivotal under the new Twin Peaks legislation pending in Parliament.
As for which banks treat customers best or worst, Standard Bank, which is SA’s largest in terms of assets, again topped the ombudsman’s list for the number of cases that were opened, followed by First National Bank, which is second largest on assets. Disturbingly though, much smaller Capitec was third on the list of cases when it came to customer complaints.
It has been quipped by former Harmony Gold CEO Bernard Swanepoel that President Jacob Zuma is one of the best things to happen to SA’s gold industry in a while. With his vigorous cabinet shuffling, notably the finance portfolio, he’s done wonders for gold’s rand price.
But what of the dollar price for gold? Well, the same joke could apply to President Donald Trump. For an inward-looking leader, Trump takes an aggressive foreign policy stance. Kicking around war-ravaged Syria is one thing, but poking the North Korean hornet’s nest is quite another. This has upset markets and investors, some of whom are scurrying to gold.
Gold bolted to five-month highs of $1,287/oz last week as tension rose around North Korea, abetted by frosty relations with Russia and Trump’s preference for lower interest rates and a weaker dollar.
The rand/gold price is close to R559,000/kg. For miners such as Sibanye Gold, which has forecast all-in sustaining costs of R480,000/kg, there is a healthy margin. AngloGold Ashanti, which derives just 27% of its gold from SA, has forecast costs of close to R500,000/kg. Harmony produced at R510,506/kg in the half-year to December.
Given the turmoil in SA and the chances of Zuma et al making more bad decisions, and Trump flexing US muscle, the gold price in either rand or dollars seems to be underpinned for some time to come.