Master Agreements - Are Some Masters More Important Than Others?

On 1 June 2023, Chapter 12A (Resolution of Designated Institutions) of the Financial Sector Regulation Act, 2017 (the "FSRA") came into effect, which introduced a system of resolution for certain designated financial institutions (including banks and systemically important financial institutions) and repealed the curatorship of banks. These legislative changes were introduced in response to South African commitment to the Group of Twenty's ("G20") recommendations to issue a list of international standards to ensure the resolution of systemically important financial institutions. These are institutions that are considered "too big to fail" because their collapse would have a significant national impact. As such, the new resolution framework is a critical component of South Africa's financial sector safety net. It empowers the resolution authority (designated as the South African Reserve Bank ("SARB") in terms of Section 166A of the FSRA) to manage the failure of a