What rights do consumers have?

Like most consumers worldwide, South African consumers are offered a wide range of protection in the form of legislated consumer rights. These rights have been developed and applied over the years into the framework that we know today. “Over the years, this has been vital; particularly in the financial services sector,” says Reana Steyn, the Ombudsman for Banking Services. “Despite these rights, over the past few years, we have seen that there are major corporates and scam artists that are very willing to take advantage of the public without a second thought.”

World Consumer Rights Day was established with the purpose to promote the basic rights of consumers. As the OBS, one of our strategic objectives is to highlight the importance of consumer rights, especially in the banking sector and to provide support to programmes that aim to educate consumers, and bank customers about the various rights they have. These consumer rights can be found in the Code of Banking Practice, the National Credit Act, the Financial Sector Regulation Act as well as the Consumer Protection Act, to name a few.