UNCLAIMED FINANCIAL ASSETS: DISCUSSION PAPER OUT FOR COMMENT

UNCLAIMED FINANCIAL ASSETS: DISCUSSION PAPER OUT FOR COMMENT

• 20 August 2026
• National Treasury
• SA Legal Academy

National Treasury has published a discussion paper on a framework for centralising unclaimed financial assets – calling for input by 19 September 2026. According to an accompanying media statement, the paper explores reforms to which Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana alluded in his 2026 Budget speech, when he mentioned creating ‘a central administrator responsible for record keeping and tracing’.

Against that backdrop, the statement refers to the importance of:

• improving prevailing measures for identifying, tracing and paying the owners and beneficiaries of unclaimed financial assets, and
• introducing ‘a consistent national approach to how these assets are recorded, administered and managed’.

It is envisaged that financial institutions holding unclaimed financial assets would be required to transfer them to the central administrator, who would invest them with the Corporation for Public Deposits – ‘a subsidiary of the South African Reserve Bank responsible for managing public deposits from various governmental entities’.

• discussion paper
• media statement
• 2026 Budget speech 

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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