South Africa’s exchange control framework is being substantially rewritten for the first time in sixty-five years. The draft Capital Flow Management Regulations, published for comment in April 2026, will replace the Exchange Control Regulations of 1961 in their entirety. Inside this overhaul is something unusual.  For the first time, cross-border crypto asset transactions will be…

There is a commonly told story about exchange controls: they were a mid-century aberration, just a hangover from war and depression, and when the great liberalisation wave of the 1980s and 1990s happened they were swept away. Capital moves freely now, the story goes, except in a handful of holdouts too poor or too badly…

I was born in East London, a small, scenic town found along the South African coast of the Eastern Cape. A beautiful, sometimes wild place. I grew up in the suburb of Berea, and not far from where I lived, there was a post office. As a youngster, I have very fond memories of taking…