Law & Regulation
Financial Markets Act 19 of 2012
Licenses and regulates South Africa's market infrastructure — exchanges, central securities depositories, clearing houses, central counterparties and trade repositories — and regulates securities trading, clearing, settlement, custody and administration; prohibits insider trading and other market abuses; provides for conduct standards. Distinct from the SARB Act, Banks Act and Financial Sector Regulation Act, and from a project's own transaction documents. Key mechanics are deliberately kept thematic rather than citing unverified section numbers, since a working primary-source fetch could not be completed during production.
Legal Significance
What This Instrument Does
The Act's regulatory core is the licensing regime for market infrastructure providers (exchanges, central securities depositories, clearing houses, central counterparties and trade repositories), the rules governing custody and administration of securities held in uncertificated form, and the statutory prohibitions on insider trading and market manipulation. Instrument boundary: does not perform the SARB Act's central-bank institutional function, the Banks Act's bank-licensing/prudential function, or the FSR Act's Twin Peaks conduct/prudential architecture — governs market infrastructure and securities trading specifically, and is not itself a project-finance transaction document.
Key Provisions
- Market infrastructure licensing
Licenses and regulates exchanges, central securities depositories, clearing houses, central counterparties and trade repositories. Practical consequence: where a transaction involves listed securities, exchange-traded instruments, or uncertificated securities held through a CSD, this licensing architecture is the operative legal framework.
- Custody and administration; insider trading and market-abuse prohibitions
Regulates custody and administration of securities held in uncertificated form and prohibits insider trading and other market abuses. Practical consequence: market-facing conduct by a regulated participant engages this Act separately from the parties' own transaction documents.
Legal Framework Position
- Banking & FinanceSupporting / Related Instrument
Instrument Overview
- Official Citation
- 19 of 2012
- Instrument Type
- Law / Act
- Source Language
- English
- Last Verified
- 6 September 2026