Will the Competition Commission penalise the unbanked?
Bank fees have reputedly hit pockets so hard that 14 percent of the population who used to have bank accounts have closed them, raising the total unbanked population to 49 percent, or 60-80 percent of low-income earners. SA’s big four banks spent two years working colluding to fix prices, to use the words of section 4 of the Competition Act – to set up a low-cost ‘Mzansi’ national bank account. This would need an exemption from the Competition Commission, but finance minister Manuel told parliament he will definitely and fiercely oppose such an exemption, and asked “if they can do it, why do they have to collude to do it?” In April a task team reported to the treasury that price-fixing, collusion and subsidies will pre-empt competition and should be avoided. But what if the banks can’t see their way to setting up low-cost accounts on their own, obviously at greater expense? Even if some other organisation enters the market, presumably also without price-fixing or collusion or a subsidy
