Financial rand Financial rand The South African financial rand was the most visible part of a system of capital controls. Although the financial rand was abolished in March 1995, some capital controls remain in place. These capital controls are locally referred to as "exchange controls", although the system has since 1995 moved towards surveillance — recording and reporting to the authorities of foreign currency transactions — rather than control. Capital controls have been in place in South Africa in various guises on an uninterrupted basis since the outbreak of World War II, when Great Britain and its dominions implemented the Sterling area.
Currency substitution currency will be satisfied in the holding of foreign currency assets abroad and outside the domestic banking system. This demand often puts pressure on the parallel market of foreign currency and on the country's international reserves. Evidence for this pattern is given in the absence of currency substitution during the pre-reform period in most transition economies, because of constricted controls on foreign exchange and the banking system. In contrary, by facilitating the domestic holding of foreign currency, a country might mitigate the shift of assets abroad and strengthen its external reserves in exchange for a currency substitution process. However, the