Budget Speech 2026

Madam Speaker, National Treasury continues to work on ensuring that financial services customers are treated fairly and the sector operates optimally.

One key issue is the more than R88 billion of unclaimed financial assets and benefits.

Following recommendations from the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, National Treasury will introduce reforms to manage these unclaimed benefits through the creation of a central administrator responsible for record keeping and tracing.

Crypto Assets

We will also shortly publish draft regulations under the Currency and Exchanges Act, to include crypto assets in our capital flow management regime.

Crypto assets will now be governed in the cross-border movement of capital framework, which will be complementary to regulations already in place to prevent the use of crypto assets to launder money and commit fraud.

Data infrastructure

The use of data and artificial intelligence has become critical for the future development of economies worldwide. As such data infrastructure should be considered as critical as electricity, ports and transport networks.

This year we will be exploring options to help data centres and related infrastructure to expand these investments in South Africa and solidify our role as a regional hub for these technologies.

Trade

One of the main policy objectives is to ensure that the financial sector supports regional integration and the implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement.

National Treasury is easing restrictions on the cross-border flows of capital by enabling domestic asset managers to manage portfolios of foreign assets.

This will improve competitiveness and allow South Africa to function as a hub for investment into the continent.

Payments

National Treasury, working with the South African Reserve Bank, has prioritised modernising the national payments system and innovation in digital finance.

The Payments Ecosystem Modernisation (PEM) has achieved its first key milestone with the establishment of a Payments Utility, which was completed in November last year with the establishment of PayInc.

PayInc will provide open, shared digital payments infrastructure to support operability across various payment providers, serving as the main platform for high-value and retail transactions.