The South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) says its approach to stablecoins has not been settled, in its first response to the public campaign launched on Wednesday, 9 September by South Africa’s largest regulated crypto platforms against its proposed cross-border crypto restrictions.
“These are draft requirements, and national treasury and Sarb, in collaboration with other regulators, are still engaging on various aspects of crypto assets, including the approach to stablecoins,” the central bank told TechCentral. “In addition, local and global developments continue to be closely monitored to inform our approach and regulatory response.”
Stablecoins – crypto tokens pegged to a currency, usually the US dollar – are where the commercial pressure sits. The draft manual published in early August by treasury and the Reserve Bank’s financial surveillance department proposes that resident entities “may not enter into crypto asset transactions deemed as import or export of capital”, closing that route through licensed local providers.
The Reserve Bank also restated that nothing is final. “The public comment period for the draft Crypto Asset Manual for Cross-Border Activities is open until 30 September 2026,” it said. “The draft manual, as well as the draft capital flow management regulations, 2026, remain subject to refinement following the consideration of all public comments and stakeholder engagements.”
The campaign it was responding to calls itself Catastrophe, for Crypto Asset Taskforce for Advancing Sound, Technology-Neutral Regulation for Opportunity, Prosperity and a Healthy Economy. It brings together VALR, Luno, AltCoinTrader and EasyEquities with academics, lawyers and economists, and objects both to the prohibition on corporate cross-border transactions that are lawful through a bank, and to a self-custody rule that lets individuals move assets out of a regulated platform into a personal wallet but not back in.
‘The current draft falls short’
Luno’s South Africa country manager, Christo de Wit, said the platform’s concern was the direction of the draft rather than the fact of regulation. As written, he told TechCentral, the manual “risks undermining the regulatory progress South Africa has made in bringing digital assets into a supervised, progressive ecosystem”.
He described the coalition as a request for a different kind of conversation: an “invitation to national treasury and the Reserve Bank to enhance its direct engagement with industry on the proposed changes and consider implementation of the alternative approach proposed by the coalition”.
De Wit also restated the principle the coalition has built its case on, borrowed from governor Lesetja Kganyago’s own account of why the central bank is shifting to activity-based regulation of the payment system, under which rules follow what is being done rather than the type of institution doing it. “Luno believes that equivalent economic activity should attract equivalent regulatory treatment, irrespective of the underlying technology. The current draft falls short of this.”
Earle Loxton, who heads EasyEquities’ crypto business EasyCrypto, was readier to grant the authorities their problem. “We recognise that South Africa’s regulators are grappling with genuine challenges around cross-border capital flows and enforcement,” he said.
His objection is to how the draft sorts them. “We think the current framework conflates different problems. The real issue isn’t crypto technology – it’s whether specific transactions pose a genuine regulatory risk. A local business receiving dollars via stablecoin from an international client isn’t evading controls; it’s using a faster rail for a lawful transaction that’s already reportable.”
The authorities’ reasoning has not shifted. When treasury first signalled the move in February, it put the concern plainly: “As crypto payments are borderless, they present an avenue to circumvent exchange controls.” The draft manual is meant to shut down arbitrage between entities doing the same cross-border business under different rules.
Submissions close on 30 September, after which the manual and the capital flow management regulations, which are to replace the exchange control regulations of 1961, go back for revision. The coalition says it will dissolve once it has secured a better outcome. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media
