4.2.1 Addressing the Apartheid pattern of retail banking: the emergence of the Financial Sector Charter and the BankSeta within the national and sector skills development “architecture” and ‘ecology’
The pattern of retail banking38 in the Apartheid regime mirrored the racial segregation and discrimination of black persons in the broader social, economic and political spheres (Coetzee, 2009; Kostov, Arun & Annim, 2014; Moyo &
Rohan, 2006). It mirrored and was embedded within the systematic and institutionalised patterns of exclusion of Apartheid, whether direct access to the basic banking services, access to the banking and finance system, or development of the financial literacy of the individual. Thus, in the post-Apartheid state one finds policy, legislative and collective interventions, such as the Financial Sector Charter (FSC) and institutional interventions by the banks that are aimed at
“financial inclusion” (Coetzee, 2009, p450) and “banking the unbanked” (ibid).
38 Retail banking comprises “banking services that [are] supplied by banks to individual
customers” (Bick, Brown, & Abratt, 2004, p303). The range of “banking financial products” (ibid) include the following: “transaction and payment products, such as cheque accounts and debit cards; investment products, such as savings accounts, fixed deposits and unit trusts; credit and borrowing products, such as credit cards, home loans, overdrafts and car finance; and financial planning products such as retirement annuity plans and education policies” (ibid).
The FSC is a voluntary agreement that the finance and banking sector stakeholders signed and committed to in 2003 to systematically address the pace and substance of transformation of the post-Apartheid finance and banking sector.
The Charter commits the stakeholders to “actively promoting a transformed, vibrant and globally competitive financial sector that reflects the demographics of South Africa, and contributes to the establishment of an equitable society by effectively providing accessible financial services to black people and by directing investment into targeted sectors of the economy” (Financial Sector Charter Council (FSCC), 2003). Coetzee et al (2009) notes that the Charter “focuses on six pillars, namely human resources development, procurement and enterprise development, ownership and control, access to financial services, empowerment financing and corporate social investment” (p448). As can be noted financial inclusion and the banking of the unbanked is one of the pillars of the Charter.
An example of the attempts by the banks to address financial inclusion and the unbanked in the post-Apartheid state is the ‘Mzansi’ account introduced in 2004 by the large established banks, which is a “basic or entry-level bank account”
(Kostov et al, 2014, p192) geared towards individual saving (Moyo et al, 2006).
Kostov et al (2014) suggests that the “intervention was situated in the broader context of financial services outreach: scale (number of clients), depth (targeting poorer clients), scope (wide range of products/services) and breadth (clients with different socio-demographic characteristics)” (p192). However, Moyo et al (2006) noted earlier that the definition and manner of inclusion through the Mzansi account is narrow and, therefore, does not address the broader transformation aspirations. It “fail[ed] to address [then] the fundamental problem of increasing access to the full range of financial services, including access to credit” (italics added, p297). They argue further that in being geared towards individual saving it
“seems to be more of a drive to intensify deposit mobilisation [by the large banks]
to tap even the smallest savings of the poor” (ibid). It does not address “how these savings will be leveraged so as to provide more economic opportunity for South Africa’s previously underbanked and unbanked, and how they will be reinvested
in communities so as to meet the needs of low-income housing, job creation and microenterprise development” (italics added, ibid).
The post-Apartheid retail banking landscape comprises a number of large and smaller banks in terms of the relative weight of banking assets, retail banking market share, and client base (Bick, Brown & Abratt, 2004; Coetzee, van Zyl &
Tait, 2012; Maredza & Ikhide, 2013; Simbanegani, Greenberg & Gwatidzo, 2012). The large banks tend to dominate the retail banking landscape and have over the years purchased a number of the smaller banks. As Maredza et al (2013) state, “[b]anking in South Africa is heavily concentrated within the so-called big-four banks which together account for more than 90 percent of the retail banking market” (p1362). The popularised term “big four” (Coetzee et al, 2012, p10559;
Maredza et al, 2013, p1362) refers to Standard Bank, Nedbank, First National Bank (which is part of the First Rand group), and ABSA Bank (a subsidiary of the Barclays Africa Group) (ABSA, 2015). Examples of the present functioning smaller banks are African Bank, Capitec Bank, PostBank and UBANK Limited (Coetzee et al, 2012; South African Reserve Bank, 2016).
As noted above, the Charter speaks to the role of the banking sector in the broader post-Apartheid transformation and inclusion process. Along with this external focus there is also the internal focus on the sector itself, including the sector’s human resource development. The past BankSeta programme director of the BankSeta IEDP states that “you can write probably a chapter on [..] the nuances around the Finance Sector Charter and its promotion of leadership development in the banking sector”.
“Employment equity was big and Finance Sector Charter was big [in the banking sector then] and there was this need realised that there’s nothing.
Well the banks were already doing a lot to be honest with you around leadership development but I think [then] it was still skewed [along
“racial” and “gender” lines]. It was skewed even around intakes and who were the beneficiaries of those development programmes and some of the bursaries or funding or funded programmes that they would send people
to, overseas to the likes of INSEAD [Business School] and the likes of maybe Wharton [Business School], [..] but I think it’s for most of the time aligned with succession plans that they have.” (italics added)
On human resource development, at the level of national policy and legislation the BankSeta and the other SETAs were enacted by the post-Apartheid state in 1998, through the Skills Development Act (1998 and amended 2008), to address the Apartheid legacy of “racialised skills development [and exclusion]” (McGrath and Akoojee, 2007, p424) and coordinate and facilitate transformation in human resource development in the various sectors of the economy. The Act and SETAs define and delimit the framework, “architecture” (McGrath & Badroodien, 2006, p488) and ‘ecology’ for skills development in the post-Apartheid South Africa.
The Act states that the aim is:
“To provide an institutional framework to devise and implement national, sector and workplace strategies to develop and improve the skills of the South African workforce; to integrate those strategies within the National Qualifications Framework contemplated in the South African Qualifications Authority Act, 1995; to provide for learnerships that lead to recognised occupational qualifications; to provide for the financing of skills development by means of a levy-grant scheme and a National Skills Fund; to provide for and regulate employment services; and to provide for matters connected therewith.” (italics added, Republic of South Africa, 1998, p1)
The levy-grant scheme and National Skills Fund provide the funding for the BankSeta and other SETAs for its various developmental programmes in pursuit of the State’s National Skills Development Strategy, and the provision of grants and funds to the organisations within the sector, who contribute to the skills development levy, for their developmental programmes (Bick et al 2004; Coetzee, van Zyl & Tait, 2012; Maredza et al, 2013; Simbanegani et al, 2012). The levy system and other aspects of the skills development ‘ecology’, such as a qualifications and competence framework, are similar to international examples in
the developed and developing worlds (Allais, 2012; Lundall, 2003; McGrath, 2012; McGrath et al, 2006). However, McGrath (2012) cautions that one needs to appreciate the various domestic and international “influences” (p490) in the evolving conceptualisation, enactment and implementation of skills development in a national context. McGrath et al and others also point to the need to ground and contextualise skills development within the broader debate on vocational education and training, including lifelong learning (Allais, 2012; Kanwar, Umar and Balasubramanian, 2013, 2014; Lundall, 2003; McGrath, 2012; McGrath et al, 2006; McGrath et al, 2007; Powell, 2012). That means broadening the conceptualisation and delivery of development from being solely an economic growth, productivity or “productivist” (McGrath, 2012, p645) focus on the present skill requirements of industries and the present employability of individuals. It entails a shift from a narrow conceptualisation of “human capital”
(ibid) as a ‘resource’ or ‘commodity’ skilled for current requirements especially, and taking a broader and holistic “capabilities approach” (ibid) to the development of an individual.
As with McGrath (2012), for example, Kanwar et al (2013, 2014) suggest that analytically one needs to differentiate policy intentions and statements from the actual delivery system and delivery or implementation of development. Kanwar et al note that although the concept, lifelong learning, is present within the second iteration of the South African National Skills Development Strategy and there is the recognition of the different categories of learning in various policy documents, there have been challenges with institutional frameworks, practices, arrangements and systems in achieving the set progressive aims. The concept, lifelong learning, entails an integrated perspective of education, training and development. It comprises the different categories of learning, namely “formal learning” (p14),
“non-formal learning” (ibid) and “informal learning” (ibid). The differentiation is defined and contested with regard to the intention, focus, outcome, structure, resources, mediation, agency (action and reflection), pedagogy and context or location (Colardyn & Bjornavold, 2004; Kanwar et al, 2013; Livingston, 2001;
Straka, 2004; Watkins & Marsick, 1992).
One could articulate examples of working definitions from the above cited authors’ reviews as follows. Formal learning is the traditional directed learning in a formal, organised and structured pedagogy and context, such as schools and universities, in an organised discipline or field of knowledge that explicitly results in a formal recognition. Non-formal and informal learning appears to be defined against this traditional form of learning and pedagogy. Non-formal learning is intentional learning on the part of the learner in “planned activities” (Straka, 2004, p9) that are not explicitly “designated [or designed as formal] learning” (ibid) but
“contain[s] an important learning element” (ibid) and can comprise an organised body of knowledge and skill or competence. Kanwar et al (2013) cite the example of acquiring vocational skills in the workplace while Livingston (2001) cites the example of “adult education courses and workshops” (p5). Informal learning is
“learning resulting from daily life activities [and experiences] related to work, family or leisure” (italics added, ibid). It tends to be incidental or tacit rather than explicit or intentional, and is not “structured in terms of learning objectives, learning time and/or learning support” (ibid) as in formal learning. Livingston (2001) suggests the differentiation between tacit learning and intentional informal learning, where in the latter one can retrospectively recognise
“(1) a new significant form of knowledge, understanding or skill acquired outside a prescribed curricular setting and (2) the process of acquisition, either on your own initiative in the case of self-directed informal learning, or with the aid of a mentor in the case of informal training, respectively.”
(italics added, p5)
Schugurensky and Myers (2003) capture the framing of the concept, lifelong learning, as integrative and comprising the different forms of learning as follows:
“Learning to Know, Learning to Do, Learning to Be, and Learning to Live Together” (p329). It means “reframing [lifelong learning] as inherently good learning for life and for work, promoting simultaneously economic progress and development, personal fulfilment, social inclusiveness and democratic understanding” (p330). Kanwar et al (2013, 2014) argues that to be integrative the
concept lifelong learning “involves the integration of three approaches: pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy” (2013, p22), which is instructional-based learning, adult learning, and “moving beyond problem-solving” (p23) to anticipating learning opportunities and learning to learn in novel contexts respectively. One can picture it as a progression of learner maturity, agency and autonomy.
However, although differentiated, Kanwar et al (2013) for example also warn against viewing the categories as mutually exclusive.
Schugurensky et al (2003) cite the many multilateral commissions and declarations, including UNESCO reports, in support of this integrative and
“progressive humanist tradition” (p329) to lifelong learning in contrast to the
“human capital” (p328) and “neoliberal” (p329) traditions39. This returns to McGrath’s (2012) caution that one appreciates the local and international contexts and networks within which the post-Apartheid education, training and development architecture and ecology is evolving. Here, one can note the post-Apartheid state’s response to the challenges with institutional frameworks, practices, arrangements and systems in achieving the set progressive aims that Kanwar et al (2013, 2014) note. Akoojee (2012) discusses the formation of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), which “incorporated institutional entities from [the] former [separate] Ministries of Education and Labour” (p674). It is meant to be a “coherent response to the education, training and skills development challenges faced by [South Africa]” (italics added, ibid) and “is an attempt to link education and labour market more deliberately” (italics added, ibid). The intention can be described as the “horizontal integration”
(Tuijnman & Bostrom, 2002, p96) of different forms of learning from education,
39 The progressive humanist tradition argues for the “liberating and transformative potential”
(Schugurensky et al, 2003, p329) of lifelong learning. It argues that to “release [this] potential [lifelong learning] should be shaped as an inclusive, holistic and critical learning project that supports learners as they negotiate changing life, learning and work conditions” (p330), and realise
“simultaneously economic progress and development, personal fulfilment, social inclusiveness and democratic understanding” (ibid). In contrast, the neoliberal tradition delimits lifelong learning and education “as a commodity” (p329), and “puts the onus and the responsibility for [lifelong]
learning (including the financial responsibility) on the individual” (p329). In the human capital tradition “education is understood as a social investment in the training of employees for market needs” (p328). Thus, it “maintains a narrow focus on training but adds a new language that refers to the information society, knowledge management, global competitiveness and the like” (ibid).
training and development; as well as the “vertical articulation” (ibid) of levels of learning in a system of qualifications and certification (Kanwar et al, 2013, 2014).
On influences, the CEO of the BankSeta40 points to the SETA architecture and skills development ecology in post-Apartheid South Africa as being “unique” and also comprising appropriation from other contexts. He also points to the ‘lifespan’
of the SETA architecture as it achieves its intended outcomes:
“It’s actually unique and I can repeat that it is unique. If you go to India the work readiness programme the parents pay for. Here the employer through a subsidy system we pay for. The levy-funded skill development for, to try and effect, to work on unemployment, for some skill development, is unique. The British come very close to funding skilled -- artisans and that kind of stuff -- but as SETAs as we are, the scheme was not original. We brought, took that that from what the Canadians had [..]
So we brought that into South Africa when we brought their management and formula for funding provinces, that’s what we did, but is it something that we should keep forever? No. I think it’s something that has a shelf life that will expire, and SETAs, I think SETAs we actually need to be honest with ourselves, we have got to run SETAs for 30 years and then in that process look at how do we get the NDP [National Development Plan]
skills requirement because it doesn’t -- the SETAs, we’re only referring to, answering the transformation targets only.” (italics added)
As the SETA for the banking sector, the BankSeta’s relationship with the sector and the stakeholders therein appears to be an evolving one. As will be discussed in the subsections below, the BankSeta over time has differentiated and segmented the banking sector in terms of different forms of banking and the various stakeholders at different levels within the various institutions in the sector.
The example that is cited is the differentiation of the International Executive Development Programme (IEDP), where one is focused on retail banking and the other on investment banking. The sample of the present research comprises the
40 CEO of the BankSeta at the time of the interview in 2014.
delegates from retail banking and the IEDP focused on retail banking. In tandem with the above differentiation and segmentation the BankSeta differentiated and segmented its development approach, including the entire value chain41 of education, training and development; and how it supports this differentiated value chain from schooling, technical colleges to universities and the “quality” of pedagogy and educators or lecturers.