A senior legal executive recently urged the industry to stay crouched and wait for the Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill. We believe that advice is flawed. This edition explains why — with the data to prove it and the behavioural science behind the inaction.
A recent commentary by a senior legal executive at one of South Africa’s largest insurance groups used the analogy of a rugby scrum to suggest that the industry should remain crouched and waiting for the Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill. We believe that advice is flawed. This edition explains why.
Read on, then take the next step.
The rugby scrum is a powerful metaphor for the Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill. But the conclusion drawn from it — that the industry should stay crouched and bound, waiting indefinitely for a call that may never come in the form expected — deserves scrutiny. In rugby, a team that stays crouched too long does not just lose momentum. It collapses. And the referee does not reward a team that keeps resetting. The referee penalises it.
Nobody is suggesting that the industry should implement the Bill before it is enacted. But waiting for the final Act does not mean sitting still. It means using the time to prepare, to get better, to improve performance and to learn from the international jurisdictions that have already walked this path.
Imagine for a moment that someone walked into the Springbok coaching box and told Rassie Erasmus and Daan Human that the scrum should wait. That the forwards should stay crouched. That the laws of the game might change so there is no point preparing for the current set piece.
We know what Erasmus would say. When he took charge of the Springboks in 2018, his first act was not to go onto the training field. It was to hold alignment camps: two days of talking, listening, aligning. No ball, no field, no contact. Just clarity on values, standards and expectations. That is governance. That is culture. That is exactly what the Bill requires of every governing body before a single operational change is made.
Erasmus has said that what helped the Springboks win the 2019 Rugby World Cup did not help them win the 2023 Rugby World Cup. The game evolves and the team must evolve with it. Every time the players arrive in camp, he has something new. He would never accept a team that wanted to stick to last year’s game plan. He would replace them.
Erasmus developed a simulation tool called Outfox, set up like a video game, where each player controls themselves on screen, simulating passages of play before trying them on the training field. He plans 18 months ahead of a Rugby World Cup. He runs alignment camps before the season. He trains at Test match intensity every day so that selection is never a leap of faith. Nothing is left to chance. Nothing is deferred until match day.
Erasmus has also explained his approach to selection: we only look at the output. Your age is actually irrelevant if you have the same output as the youngster. And he has been brutally honest about decline: if a player stops doing something he used to do, he either does not want to do it or he can no longer do it, and then you have your answer. That is outcomes-based assessment. That is exactly how the FSCA will evaluate financial service providers under the new regime.
A coach who told his team to wait until the opposition runs onto the field before deciding how to play would not last a single season. Yet that is precisely what the financial services industry is being told to do. Erasmus would find that instruction incomprehensible.
Daan Human, the Springbok scrum coach widely regarded as the architect of the most dominant scrummaging side in world rugby, has spent six years building a set piece that has won two consecutive Rugby World Cups. His philosophy is built on legal technique, precision and years of relentless preparation. He would not tolerate a pack that repeatedly reset. Under World Rugby’s laws, a scrum that collapses or resets is penalised. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority will not reward providers who keep resetting their preparation timelines. It will penalise them.
If the profession were using the waiting period productively, the data would show it. It does not. Our readiness polls conducted at four South African industry events during 2026 — Cape Town, Gauteng, Durban and the Financial Planning Institute — paint a picture of an industry that has confused waiting with inaction.
The gap between conviction and evidence is breathtaking. A total of 86.2 per cent say governance is fundamental. A total of 91.9 per cent rate culture as extremely important. And 87.2 per cent agree governing bodies will have to lead at a higher level. The profession agrees with every principle. It has produced almost none of the evidence.
A total of 84.9 per cent of respondents rate their client engagement quality above seven out of ten. But only 24.2 per cent can evidence a fully embedded value proposition. In 1981, psychologist Ola Svenson asked drivers to rate their own ability compared to their peers. Ninety-three per cent rated themselves as more skilled than average. This is statistically impossible. A key individual who is confident but undocumented is exposed precisely because the confidence is genuine.
Samuelson and Zeckhauser established in 1988 that individuals disproportionately stick with the status quo even when the importance of the decision is great and the transition costs are small. The status quo is not a strategy. It is a bias masquerading as prudence.
Svenson’s 1981 study demonstrated that 93 per cent of drivers rate themselves as more skilled than average. Our poll shows 84.9 per cent rate their engagement above 7/10 but only 24.2 per cent can evidence it. The profession is overconfident in its readiness.
With 78.0 per cent at or beyond capacity, scarcity of time imposes a measurable cognitive load that reduces bandwidth for long-horizon planning. Waiting does not solve this. It deepens it. Every month of deferred preparation narrows the implementation window.
Darley and Latané showed that responsibility diffuses as the number of potential actors increases. With 61.3 per cent placing accountability on the key individual and only 12.5 per cent on the chief executive, the transition has no confirmed owner.
These four biases do not operate in isolation. They reinforce each other in a self-sustaining cycle. Status quo bias makes waiting feel comfortable. Overconfidence makes it feel safe. Scarcity makes acting feel impossible. And the bystander effect makes waiting feel rational because everyone else is doing it too. Breaking this cycle requires a deliberate, externally validated intervention.
A total of 61.3 per cent of respondents placed accountability for the transition on the key individual. A total of 46.8 per cent expect the compliance officer to drive it. Only 12.5 per cent named the chief executive. Not one of these answers matches what the Bill requires. The governing body is accountable for conduct outcomes. The chief executive is accountable for direction and execution. The compliance officer advises, monitors and reports.
The governing body assumes the key individual has it. The key individual assumes the compliance officer has it. The compliance officer reports, accurately, that this is not their function. And 88 per cent of delegates reported being guided by product providers and compliance officers to just carry on and wait. That is not guidance. It is the bystander effect institutionalised.
Every decision to defer has a human consequence. In Australia, where 43 per cent of advisers exited, the decline from 28,000 to under 16,000 did not just remove advisers from the register. It removed entire teams from the economy: administrators, compliance staff, client service officers and junior professionals.
But the deepest cost falls on the clients. Consider a 62-year-old, three years from retirement, who learns that her adviser of fifteen years has closed his practice because he could not meet the new requirements. She must find a new adviser, explain her full financial history, rebuild trust from zero and pay for a new needs analysis while navigating the most consequential financial decisions of her life. She did not choose to wait. Her adviser chose to wait. And she is paying for that choice.
Anton Swanepoel, who has studied all three published drafts of the Bill alongside the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act and related instruments, has found that between 90 and 95 per cent of the market conduct principles have remained the same across all three versions. The claim that the final draft will be materially different does not withstand scrutiny. If National Treasury published a materially different Bill, it would make a mockery of the transition workgroup process, undermine public comment and contradict principles established through more than 21 years of Ombud determinations, High Court judgements and Supreme Court of Appeal decisions.
Rassie Erasmus did not build the most successful team in world rugby by waiting for the referee to call set. He built it by holding alignment camps before anyone touched a ball. He built it by innovating with tools like Outfox. He built it by planning 18 months ahead of every Rugby World Cup. He built it by training at Test match intensity every day. And he built it by demanding that every player be judged purely on current output, not on past performance.
Daan Human built the world’s best scrum the same way: thousands of hours on the training ground, refining technique, building conditioning, studying opposition weaknesses and developing the tactical flexibility to adapt to any interpretation of the laws. His forwards arrive at every scrum already prepared. They do not ask for more time. They do not request another reset. They engage.
The parallel could not be clearer. Put your game plan in place now. Innovate your processes. Align your team around your values. Build the infrastructure that will hold under pressure. Do not wait for the final whistle to decide how to play.
Irrespective of whether you agree with the wait or not, a better, faster, leaner, more efficient and more accurate team wanting to improve on their last performance will always outperform one that would rather stick to last year’s game plan. The question is not whether the scrum will be set. It will. The question is whether you will be strong enough to hold your position when it is. And whether the people who depend on this business — your staff, your clients and your family — will still be standing beside you when the whistle blows.
3.4 per cent have a documented plan. 82.2 per cent have not started. 78.0 per cent have no capacity. 61.3 per cent have assigned accountability to the wrong person. The scrum is coming. These numbers will not hold.
Inertia never moves you toward anything. The changing room is not a strategy. Waiting is not an excuse for doing nothing. Use the time. Get onto the training field. The match is closer than you think.
— Anton Swanepoel, Founder, Trusted Advisors and FSP Business 4.0
If you have not yet conducted a formal assessment against the fifteen obligation areas, or if you want to understand the building blocks that make up each obligation, visit FSP40.com for practical tools, frameworks and guidance to begin your implementation journey.