By Thapelo Molefe
Discovery Bank Limited has been fined R 3 million for multiple breaches of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FIC Act), the Prudential Authority (PA) announced in a statement. The sanction follows a compliance inspection conducted in 2021.
The PA said the administrative sanctions relate to the bank’s failure to comply with several provisions of the FIC Act, including section 43, which requires institutions to properly train employees on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing obligations.
According to the regulator, a significant number of Discovery Bank employees had not received the required training within the prescribed period.
“DBL failed to comply with section 43 of the FIC Act as it failed to provide training as prescribed by its Risk Management and Compliance Programme,” the PA said.
This included “84 out of 155 of its new employees [who] had not received training within 30 days of being appointed” and 47 out of 109 of its employees [who] had not received annual refresher training within a period of a year.
The PA also cited other compliance failures, including delays in reporting suspicious transactions and backlogs in attending to automated transaction monitoring alerts.
“The administrative sanctions imposed on DBL consist of four cautions not to repeat the conduct which led to the non-compliance, and a financial penalty totalling R3 million, of which R1 million is conditionally suspended for a period of 36 months,” the Authority said.
The PA noted that Discovery Bank has since cooperated with authorities and undertaken remedial action to address the compliance deficiencies and control weaknesses identified during the inspection.
In the year to June, Discovery grew customers by 30%, from 960 000 to 1,25 million, a growth rate of 1400 customers a day. The number of Discovery Bank accounts over this period rose by 32% from 2.27 million to 3 million.
For the 2025 financial year, Discovery reported an operating profit before new acquisitions of R368 million, compared with an operating loss of R52 million in 2024. Discovery became profitable in 2025 after breaking even in December, an accomplishment it said was ahead of expectations.
INSIDE POLITICS