VBS says it was 'targeted' because it was a fast-growing threat – and shouldn't have been because it was advancing radical economic transformation

NKANDLA, SOUTH AFRICA An overview of the new home for South Africa president Jacob Zuma's in his birth village on October 10, 2012 in KwaNxamalala, Nkandla. Photo by Per-Anders Pettersson, Getty.

• VBS is the first bank to be put in curatorship since African Bank in 2014.
• One of its founders told Business Day VBS was "targeted" because "it is a threat to other banks".
• The bank is surprised because it was "advancing the policy of radical economic transformation".

The Reserve Bank may have placed VBS Mutual Bank into curatorship because it was growing too fast for the liking of its competitors, one of its founders told Business Day in an interview published on Monday morning.

"We suspect we are being targeted," the paper quotes Wilson Muvhulawa as saying. "VBS Bank is the fastest-growing bank in South Africa and we believe it is a threat to other banks. They are now trying by all means to keep us where we are."

VBS was founded in 1982. It started to grow rapidly in 2016, around the same time it extended a loan to then President Jacob Zuma. Despite that rapid growth it was a fraction of the size of full-fledged banks when it was placed into curatorship.

Read the full article in Business Day here: Zuma loan was not a reward, says bank founder

Muvhulawa said the bank did not understand the treatment it received because "we are advancing the policy of radical economic transformation".

The phrase "radical economic transformation" became synonymous with the Zuma faction's 2016 battle to win ANC elections. It has since become associated with attacks on the presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa.

See also: 18 months ago VBS gave Jacob Zuma a loan – and municipal deposits started pouring in. The Reserve Bank just put VBS into curatorship because it could not pay back the money.

Muvhulawa insisted that the loan to Zuma had been legitimate, considered as any other loan would have been, and had had nothing to do with politics or the Venda succession.

Now, he says, VBS was being punished for granting that loan.