From CompliNEWS | Financial Services Intelligence Watch

Analysis – How the FSCA compares with leading international financial regulators

By James George, Compli-Serve

There is no reliable global league table for financial-regulatory enforcement. Regulators have different mandates, legal systems and reporting methods. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission counts enforcement actions, the UK Financial Conduct Authority reports Final Notices and criminal convictions, Australia’s ASIC relies heavily on court proceedings, while the FSCA reports investigations finalised and administrative decisions. Raw fine amounts are also distorted by currency, market size and occasional exceptionally large cases. A fair comparison must therefore consider the breadth, speed and durability of enforcement, together with whether consumers actually receive compensation.

South Africa – FSCA. The FSCA’s 2025/26 performance was materially stronger than in previous years. It finalised 678 investigations, up from 633, while reducing ongoing investigations from 494 to 340. It imposed R2.889 billion in penalties, issued 140 public warnings, debarred 68 individuals directly and used licence withdrawals, suspensions, directives and enforceable undertakings. The weakness in the headline figure is concentration: approximately 71% of all penalties arose from the Banxso matter. Once Banxso is removed, penalties fall to approximately R837.7 million. That is still a credible result and substantially higher than the previous year’s total of R119.8 million, but it shows why enforcement effectiveness should not be judged by fines alone.

United States – SEC. The SEC remains in a different weight class because of the size and global importance of the US capital markets. In its 2025 financial year it filed 456 enforcement actions, including 303 standalone actions, barred 119 people from serving as public-company officers or directors and returned approximately US$262 million to harmed investors. The SEC initially reported US$17.9 billion in monetary relief, but expressly explained that this included amounts deemed satisfied elsewhere and very old Stanford-related judgments. On an adjusted basis, the total was closer to US$2.7 billion. That transparency is instructive: the FSCA should similarly publish both its headline penalty number and an underlying figure excluding unusually dominant matters such as Banxso. Compared with the SEC, the FSCA is smaller but performs reasonably well in investigation throughput and individual accountability. It is much weaker in reporting actual money recovered and returned to victims.

United Kingdom – FCA. The FCA provides perhaps the most useful mature-market comparison because, like the FSCA, it has a broad conduct mandate covering firms, individuals, financial crime and consumer treatment. During 2025/26, the FCA issued 30 Final Notices, secured 17 criminal convictions, brought criminal charges against ten individuals, imposed more than £129 million in fines, cancelled 1,264 firm authorisations and obtained £82.1 million in payments for consumers and investors. It also achieved 137 formal intervention outcomes. The FSCA compares favourably in the volume of investigations completed and the use of public warnings and debarments. The FCA is ahead in demonstrating end results: convictions, confiscation, consumer payments and rapid interventions. The FSCA reports that 46 matters were referred to SAPS and that it supported 12 active criminal investigations and prosecutions, but referrals are not the same as convictions.

Australia – ASIC. ASIC is particularly strong in court-based enforcement, compensation and personal consequences. During July to December 2025 alone, Australian courts imposed A$349.8 million in civil penalties. ASIC reported 13 custodial sentences, 61 people removed or restricted from financial services or credit, 23 new civil proceedings and 123 investigations commenced. Its broader update also recorded A$583 million returned to Australians during the six-month period. ASIC therefore provides stronger evidence than the FSCA that enforcement is producing restitution and imprisonment, rather than predominantly administrative sanctions. The trade-off is that court-led cases can be slower and more expensive. The FSCA’s ability to impose administrative penalties, debar individuals and withdraw licences may produce faster regulatory protection, provided its decisions remain procedurally sound.

Hong Kong – SFC. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission is more narrowly focused on securities, intermediaries and market integrity. Its published statistics demonstrate a substantial pipeline covering intermediary misconduct, corporate governance, insider dealing, manipulation and unlicensed activity. At June 2025 it recorded 501 investigations across those categories and 380 persons or corporations subject to prosecution, civil, disciplinary or Market Misconduct Tribunal proceedings, although many were continuing matters rather than new annual cases. Hong Kong is particularly strong in civil recovery and cross-agency operations. Its 2025/26 report highlighted an arrangement requiring an auditor to set aside HK$1 billion for minority-shareholder compensation—the first outcome of its kind. The FSCA’s Banxso and Medbond actions were forceful, but its report provides much less evidence of comparable asset recovery or direct compensation.

International position. On balance, the FSCA sits in the upper-middle tier internationally and is a credible, increasingly assertive conduct regulator. It is not yet at the level of the SEC, FCA, ASIC or Hong Kong SFC in resources, judicial reach, asset recovery or criminal outcomes. However, it compares better than the penalty headline alone suggests. Its reduction of the investigative backlog, high number of completed cases, extensive warnings, individual debarments and willingness to withdraw licences demonstrate genuine enforcement capacity.

The FSCA’s next step should be to report what ultimately happened after the sanction: how much of each penalty was collected, how much money was frozen or recovered, how many customers were compensated, how long investigations took and how many criminal referrals produced convictions. Its Tribunal record is reasonably sound – most finalised challenges left the FSCA’s decisions standing – but leading regulators increasingly measure success through harm prevented and money restored, not simply cases closed or fines announced.

My overall assessment is that the FSCA is performing strongly for its jurisdiction and resources, and increasingly looks like a serious international conduct regulator. It is particularly effective in administrative enforcement and visible deterrence. It remains behind the leading international regulators in consumer restitution, criminal conversion, speed reporting and transparent measurement of underlying enforcement performance.