Customer Story
‘The people that you
interact with have
no authority. Your
application is sent to
regional and national
credit committees.
They have basically
removed the element
of knowing the
person, unless you are
a high-profile black
person.’
‘It starts with personal banking,’ Combi claims. ‘The facilities
granted to blacks versus whites. White people get huge overdrafts,
and these excessive facilities result in their properties getting
liquidated. They get easy bonds, easy overdrafts.’
Combi, whose company is invested in the mid-sized bank,
Capitec, says he has had to personally confront some of the banks
to get a bigger loan facility.
‘I have learnt of racism by personally confronting some of these
banks. Banks are still looking at black people as high risk. They
must produce the statistics to disprove that.’
He says that what has made things difficult for black people is a
change in the banking system. Combi maintains that 20 years ago
a customer knew their bank manager, and that the bank manager
knew the customer’s standing and business.
‘The bank manager could take a risk. That is different today. The
people that you interact with have no authority. Your application
is sent to regional and national credit committees. They have
basically removed the element of knowing the person, unless you
are a high-profile black person.’
Out of approximately seven directors listed as serving on the
credit committee in Nedbank’s website, three are black and are
finance directors Raisibe Morathi, Mustaq Brey and Gloria Serobe.
The other members are Mike Brown, Thomas Boardman, Graham
Dempster, and Ian Gladman.
At Standard Bank, out of the five directors listed on the website
as serving on the credit committee two of its members, Sim
Tshabalala and Fred Phaswana, are black. They serve alongside
Simon Ridley, Myles Ruck, and Doug Band.
Barclays Africa Group’s concentration risk committee, which
considers and approves the largest credit applications, is made
up of Colin Beggs, David Hodnett, Wendy Lucas-Bull, Trevor
Munday, and Maria Ramos.
At FirstRand the set up is quite different as the group has banking
and lending franchises like FNB, Wesbank and Rand Merchant
Bank. These franchises have their own executives. FirstRand’s
committee loo