South Africa’s banks recorded two branch robberies in 2025. Not two a month – two for the entire year, down from eight in 2024, together yielding just R630 000. In the same 12 months, customers of the country’s biggest banks lodged claims worth R2.4-billion after being defrauded through digital channels.
A typical case starts with a call impersonating the bank or the police, warning that an account is at risk and that money must be moved to a so-called “safe account”, with the criminal staying on the line while the customer adds a beneficiary and approves the payment.
The striking contrast runs through the 2025 Annual Banking Crime Statistics published by the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) this week. Almost every category of physical attack on banking infrastructure fell during the year, several steeply. The money, meanwhile, moved decisively to digital fraud – and most of that grew.