South Africa Banks Ponder
The South African banking system has been hit with the
difficult task of blocking all offshore online casino gambling transactions that
occur within the country because the South African government continues to stall
in the development and implementation of more inclusive gambling regulations.
Although South Africa has preliminarily approved the online casinos and internet
gambling industry no new regulations have actually passed through into law,
meaning that the South African banks are still being asked to find a way to
block transactions with the technically illegal internet gambling sites. The key
issue though lies within the fact that coding and blocking one specific type of
transaction is incredibly difficult; the international financial systems are
simply not setup for that task.
To effect change, however, the banking system in South Africa is pondering new
policies that it could put in place across all of the banks in South Africa.
Just this month the Reserve Bank released a circular to all of the banks in
South Africa with thoughts and suggestions for how these banks could adjust
their payment processing policies to better block the illegal offshore online
casinos. And although the circular was released with all good intentions in
place, none of the banks in the country have really responded to the circular
and there is no indication that South Africa is anywhere near ready to attempt a
complete block over the offshore online casino industry in the country.
Right now, with the World Cup just right around the corner it seems as though
there is already that the banks have to contend with right now beyond the
ambiguous and flawed attempts to block online casino gambling transactions –
particularly since offshore online betting is likely going to be at an all time
high during the World Cup games.
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