The liquidator of VBS Mutual Bank, Anoosh Rooplal, on Thursday reiterated his call that qualifying depositors, who held VBS accounts, should redeem their funds at any Nedbank branch as the cut-off date looms.
Rooplal, the Prudential Authority (PA) and Nedbank agreed back in 2018 that depositors who were owed up to R100,000 be given a three-year period to claim their funds, for which the cut-off date is on 8 July 2021 .
He said on Thursday that 98% of the R260 million allocated for retail depositors who had up to R100,000 deposited with the bank had been successfully refunded.
“A decision was taken by the PA and Nedbank to close some 3,773 accounts with balances of R100 or less. These accounts amounted to approximately R105,000 and were closed from a cost and administrative perspective.
“These depositors still reserve the right to claim their funds from Nedbank up until 8 July 2021. The intention for this initiative was always for the vulnerable depositors to not suffer financial loss as a result of the fraud that was perpetrated at VBS and hence the decision by the national Treasury to guarantee these funds.”
Rooplal described the retail depositors’ repayments a success.
“These depositors were able to access their funds fairly quickly. Without the intervention of the South African Reserve Bank, these depositors would still be out of pocket,” Rooplal said.
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“The final tranche of qualifying accounts was recently transferred to Nedbank and constituted some 370 accounts amounting to approximately R3.7 million in value.”
Rooplal has since encouraged previous VBS clients to activate their account at any Nedbank branch to enable them to redeem their funds.
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