November 30, 2009

IN AN apparent climb-down, the Banking Association of SA (Basa) said yesterday it wanted to reopen negotiations with the government and industry players such as labour and community groups on how to keep some of the successful empowerment elements of the financial services charter.The chairman of Basa and CE of Nedbank , Tom Boardman, told Business Day yesterday that the association’s position that it would no longer engage with the community and labour members of the Financial Charter Council was “overstated”.

Boardman said he had a discussion with Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan on Friday, and looked forward to continuing discussions with all the parties.The way forward is that the banks are very happy to continue engaging,” he said.Yesterday, the South African Communist Party (SACP) took umbrage at Basa MD Cas Coovadia, who made the announcement last week, saying that he did not have a mandate to make “this unilateral and clumsy announcement”.