Sipho Tshabalala

For decades, we’ve been sold a lie. A monstrous, cold-blooded deception that has cost thousands of South Africans their homes, their security, and their dignity. The big banks—those polished towers of power—have operated like a cartel, preying on the trust of hard-working citizens and stealing from them under the guise of “lending.”

Financial forensic expert Emerald van Zyl has ripped the mask off this operation, and what he’s uncovered should have every South African furious. This isn’t just a financial scandal. It’s organised theft on a scale so vast that it makes common criminals look like amateurs.

The weapon? Home loans. The victims? Every single South African who ever took a bond from a bank.

Let’s cut through the nonsense. When you signed for your home loan, you thought the bank was lending you money. You believed that over 20 or 30 years, you’d be paying them back what they gave you—with interest, of course. That’s the deal they sold you. But it was a scam. A deep, well-oiled, carefully crafted deception.

Here’s the truth: the bank didn’t lend you a cent. Not one. Instead, your signed mortgage contract—your promise to pay—became their golden ticket. That piece of paper, with your signature, was transformed into a financial asset. The bank took it, marched over to the Reserve Bank, and leveraged it as a bond to create ten times its value.

Read that again. You applied for a R500,000 home loan, and with your promise to pay, the bank conjured R5 million in credit from the Reserve Bank and you have not as yet received one cent. But it gets worse.

The bank now cedes your promise to pay to a Trust, for example the Maitland Trust. The Maitland Trust then sells your promise to pay which is now an asset to an investment entity, for example ABC Pension Fund by means of securitisation for an amount R 500,000.

The Maitland Trust then takes insurance to protect the Pension Fund, in case you fail to pay your instalments. It is therefore the Pension Fund that paid the R500,000 to the Maitland Trust and then the Trust paid the bank for your mortgage loan of R 500,000.

So your mortgage did not cost the Bank one cent.

The banks did what they do best—make money from thin air. They securitised your mortgage, passed the risk onto third-party investors, and insulated themselves from any real loss. But when you hit hard times, when the economy crumbled beneath you, when you struggled to keep up with your payments, did they care? No. They came for your home.

And here’s the most ruthless part: by the time they sent the sheriffs to evict you, your bond had already been paid in full.

The Maitland Trust had taken insurance on your R500,000 mortgage. The moment you missed your 91st-day payment, the insurance kicked in and settled the full value of your bond to the Trust.

Meaning? The debt was cleared. But that didn’t stop the bank. They still foreclosed on you, still auctioned your house for a fraction of its value, still threw your family out onto the street.

They got paid twice—once through the insurance and again when they sold your home.

And the government? The regulators? The Reserve Bank? Silent. Complicit. Watching as the biggest property heist in South African history unfolded right under their noses.

This isn’t just an injustice. It’s a crime. A systematic, deliberate act of financial oppression designed to keep ordinary South Africans trapped in an endless cycle of debt, while the banking elite line their pockets.

How many families have been torn apart? How many lives were destroyed? How many people have been reduced to nothing, believing it was their fault, that they “failed” to pay their bond—when in reality, they were set up from the start?

It’s time to wake up.

Every homeowner who lost a house through foreclosure should be demanding justice. Every so-called leader who claims to fight for economic transformation should be calling for an inquiry. Every banking executive who profited from this robbery should be held accountable.

The banks have gotten away with daylight robbery for far too long. Now that the truth is out, the real question is: What are we going to do about it?

* Sipho Tshabalalala is an independent writer, commentator and analyst.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.

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