Corporate citizenship in the context of the financial services sector: what lessons from the Financial Sector Charter?

This article argues that the introduction of the Financial Sector Charter (FSC) in South Africa is an important innovation in terms of creating a framework for the sector to promote corporate citizenship. If implemented in its totality, the FSC promises to make a significant contribution to the transformation of the sector. However, on the basis of performance to date, the authors raise concerns about the prospects of the FSC being instrumental in this transformation. They suggest that the sector risks missing the valuable opportunity it has generated for itself. The lack of progress also raises the fundamental question as to whether transformation in the financial services sector can really be achieved on the basis of the model of self-regulation as embodied in the Charter.