The Financial Revolution since 1961

Abstract

Between 1961 and 1990 South Africa experienced a financial revolution. In 1961 the bulk of the country’s banking business was conducted by the ‘imperial banks’, and banking functions had not significantly changed since 1861. An embryonic money market had just been established with the formation of the first merchant bank and the first discount house in the late 1950s, but their full flowering came only after 1961. In this respect the 1970s seem to have been especially important. In this decade, too, not only did the money market mature, but the traditional functions of the clearing banks changed almost beyond recognition, as they began to move into the territory of the merchant banks, the hire-purchase banks, the building societies and insurance agents.