ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how the financial system contributed to apartheid geographical forms, to South Africa's development trajectory, to the demise of apartheid and to post-apartheid economic processes. The past two decades or so witnessed an amplification of both power and vulnerability in the financial sector, with notable implications for spatial and social development during political transition. The history of financial domination of South Africa's geographical development begins with the onset of substantial international financial flows in the early nineteenth century, followed by the founding of the Standard Chartered Bank in the mid-nineteenth century, and the rise of diamond and gold as sites of mining-financial power, speculation and international investor interest. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, South African financiers - especially two inexperienced local-based banks - had entered the international money markets. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) of 1994 includes expansive promises regarding bank regulation and development finance.
