The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Financial Surveillance Department (FinSurv), in conjunction with National Treasury, has published the draft Crypto Asset Manual for cross-border activities for public comment.
This 88-page document sets out the operational architecture governing how digital assets may enter and leave South Africa. Issued to complement the draft Capital Flow Management Regulations gazetted on 17 April 2026, the manual establishes the licensing conditions, transactional limits, and reporting requirements for Authorised Crypto Asset Service Providers (Authorised CASPs).
The authorities state that these rules are designed to prevent regulatory arbitrage between traditional banks and fintech platforms, modernize cross-border monitoring, and assist FinSurv in detecting and disrupting illicit financial flows.
However, the draft manual introduces significant structural restrictions that fundamentally alter how individuals and commercial enterprises interact with digital assets.
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Where do you stand?
🔴 I OBJECT to the draft Crypto Asset Manual in its current form
🟡 I AMEND / NOT FULLY (Demand technology-neutral, workable rules)
🟢 I FULLY SUPPORT the draft Crypto Asset Manual as published
Have your say – shape the manual.
Top concerns
The Draft Policy:
Table 1 and Table 2 declare that transfers of crypto assets originating from a non-custodial (self-hosted) wallet into a domestic Authorised CASP are “considered non-permissible transactions”.
The Legal & Practical Risk:
Resident individuals may withdraw crypto to a personal hardware wallet under their R2 million Single Discretionary Allowance (SDA) or R10 million Foreign Capital Allowance (FCA). However, they are legally prohibited from ever returning those assets to a licensed domestic exchange to liquidate into Rand. Inward transfers are only permitted if sent directly from an offshore Authorised CASP. This treats personal self-custody as illegitimate and traps savings offshore or outside the domestic banking network.
Suggested Point for Submission:
Demand that FinSurv remove the non-permissible classification for inward transfers from self-hosted wallets. Inward transfers should be permitted subject to standard Customer Due Diligence (CDD), source-of-funds verification, and blockchain forensic risk scoring under the FIC Act.
The Draft Policy:
Section B.1(C)(iii)(b)(dd) and Table 1 state: “Resident entities may not enter into crypto asset transactions deemed as import or export of capital in terms of the draft Regulations”.
The Legal & Practical Risk:
Corporate South Africa—including registered companies, tech enterprises, SMMEs, and trusts—is prohibited from utilizing digital assets for international payments, software subscriptions, overseas contractor fees, or cross-border trade settlement. This leaves South African businesses at a competitive disadvantage against international peers who leverage low-cost, near-instant blockchain rails.
Suggested Point for Submission:
Demand that resident corporate entities be granted cross-border crypto allowances parallel to traditional foreign exchange allowances, subject to balance-of-payments reporting and SARS corporate tax compliance.
The Draft Policy:
The framework regulates the underlying cryptographic medium rather than the economic activity. A cross-border invoice payment made via correspondent banking rails is permissible, but the identical commercial transaction settled over a public ledger is banned.
The Legal & Practical Risk:
This directly contradicts SARB Governor Lesetja Kganyago’s stated policy standard that identical financial activities must face identical regulatory requirements regardless of the technology used. Regulating the rail rather than the risk distorts the financial market and penalizes technological innovation.
Suggested Point for Submission:
Insist that FinSurv align the manual with the principle of technology neutrality, ensuring that transactions permitted under traditional exchange control channels are equally permissible when conducted through licensed CASPs.
The Draft Policy:
Rigid entry barriers, high capital mandates, and operational prohibitions on corporate usage.
The Legal & Practical Risk:
Leading financial platforms report that foreign direct investment into the South African fintech ecosystem is stalling. Highly skilled software engineers, compliance professionals, and blockchain architects face retrenchment as companies consider redomiciling to progressive jurisdictions like the UAE, the UK, or Mauritius. Forcing trading activity onto offshore or peer-to-peer markets also erodes the tax collection base of SARS.
Suggested Point for Submission:
Highlight to National Treasury that overly restrictive capital controls harm the domestic economy by driving business, liquidity, and taxable revenue out of South Africa.
The Draft Policy:
Under Section B.2(B), Authorised CASPs must maintain an unimpaired capital balance equal to the higher of R5 million or 15% of their average positive annual gross income over the preceding three years. This capital must be held in a segregated Rand-denominated bank account and cannot be moved, pledged, or encumbered without written FinSurv authorization.
The Legal & Practical Risk:
Locking away a minimum of R5 million in unencumbered fiat cash creates an insurmountable entry barrier for emerging domestic fintech startups. Furthermore, strict limitations on international cloud infrastructure, data localisation, and bans on foreign branch structures favor well-capitalised incumbent banks, restricting competition.
Suggested Point for Submission:
Request a tiered, risk-adjusted capital adequacy framework for Category 1 and Category 2 CASPs that reflects actual transaction volumes and operational risk, rather than a blanket R5 million capital lock-up.
The Draft Policy:
National Treasury and SARB published this draft manual while public comments on the primary draft Capital Flow Management Regulations (gazetted 17 April 2026) remain unaddressed.
The Legal & Practical Risk:
The draft manual operationalises definitions and enforcement mechanisms (including criminal penalties and compulsory disclosures) derived from a parent regulation that has not been finalised. Requiring the public to evaluate operational rules under an unfinalised statutory foundation infringes upon procedural fairness under Section 33 of the Constitution and PAJA.
Suggested Point for Submission:
Call on National Treasury to halt implementation of the draft manual until the parent Capital Flow Management Regulations are updated, transparently re-gazetted, and reconciled with public input.
The Draft Policy:
Authorised CASPs must report detailed customer identifiers, residential addresses, transaction hashes, and wallet addresses to FinSurv via straight-through daily reconciliation modules, retaining records for a minimum of five years.
The Legal & Practical Risk:
Public blockchains are permanent, immutable ledgers. Linking personal identities, physical home addresses, and tax numbers to public wallet addresses on a centralised state server creates significant privacy risks under Section 14 of the Constitution and the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), creating a target for cyber breach and financial tracking.
Suggested Point for Submission:
Urge the Reserve Bank to implement privacy-preserving reporting mechanisms that collect aggregate economic flow data without storing unshielded wallet-identity mappings on centralized databases.
The Draft Policy:
Section A.4(vii) and Table 2 explicitly prohibit Authorised CASPs from entering into any crypto asset transactions with residents of the CMA (Lesotho, Namibia, and eSwatini). Furthermore, Category 1 remittances are restricted to an arbitrary cap of R5,000 per day and R25,000 per month.
The Legal & Practical Risk:
Excluding regional neighbours restricts low-cost remittance corridors that support families and cross-border trade in Southern Africa. This runs counter to the regional economic integration goals of SADC and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Suggested Point for Submission:
Demand the removal of the blanket ban on CMA residents and an upward revision of the remittance limits to reflect real-world cross-border trade and family financial support needs.
The Argument:
Supporters argue that formalising cross-border crypto flows provides regulatory certainty, closes illicit financial conduits, and aligns South Africa with global FATF standards following its exit from the grey list.
Suggested Point for Submission:
Commend SARB for establishing clear reporting categories and formalising Category 1, 2, and 3 Authorised CASPs, while requesting that technical requirements be refined to support domestic market growth.
Perspectives: What is the debate?
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- Curbing Regulatory Arbitrage:
Unregulated cross-border crypto movements undermine the foreign exchange framework. Bringing crypto transactions within standard balance-of-payments reporting ensures that fintech entities face the same compliance oversight as commercial banks. - Defending the Fiscus & National Currency:
In an era of borderless digital finance, untracked capital outflows threaten domestic macroeconomic stability and the South African Rand. Comprehensive surveillance enables FinSurv to track the true volume of capital moving across borders. - Protecting International Financial Standing:
Following South Africa’s removal from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list, closing cross-border anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) loopholes is necessary to maintain global banking relationships. - Ensuring Platform Solvency:
Enforcing a minimum unimpaired capital reserve of R5 million and mandating client asset segregation protects everyday consumers from exchange collapses and fraudulent practices. - Structured Industry Pathways:
The manual replaces legal ambiguity with a defined, tiered licensing model (Category 1, 2, and 3), providing institutional legitimacy for compliant operators.
- Curbing Regulatory Arbitrage:
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- Breach of Technology Neutrality:
SARB Governor Lesetja Kganyago stated that “similar payment activities should be subject to similar regulatory expectations, whether they are performed by a bank or a fintech.” The draft manual breaches this principle by permitting businesses to execute international vendor settlements via SWIFT while outright banning the exact same economic transaction if routed through regulated blockchain rails. - The “Cold Storage Trap”:
Classifying inward transfers from non-custodial wallets as non-permissible penalizes the foundational property of public blockchain technology: individual self-custody. It creates a one-way street where citizens can take custody of their digital property, but are legally locked out of the domestic banking system if they ever wish to repatriate it. - Economic Isolation of South African Enterprise:
Banning South African companies and trusts from cross-border crypto rails isolates the domestic tech sector, digital exporters, and Web3 startups from the global digital economy, preventing them from using efficient stablecoin settlement channels. - Threat to Domestic Jobs & Foreign Investment:
The industry-led CATASTROPHE coalition (including VALR, Luno, AltCoinTrader, and EasyEquities) warns that billions of Rands in foreign direct investment into South African fintech have been frozen, putting thousands of skilled jobs and significant corporate and PAYE tax contributions at immediate risk. - Perverse Incentive for Unregulated Flight:
Imposing non-workable restrictions will not stop digital asset usage; it will simply drive liquidity away from compliant domestic exchanges into unregulated offshore peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, blinding both FinSurv and SARS. - Administrative Cart Before the Horse:
Requesting public commentary on operational directives while the parent Capital Flow Management Regulations remain unresolved undermines procedural fairness under PAJA.
- Breach of Technology Neutrality: