BANKSETA

BANKSETA, the Banking Sector Education and Training Authority, is one of 21 Sector Education and Training Authorities established under the Skills Development Act of 1998 to administer skills development within a defined economic sector — in BANKSETA’s case the banking and broader microfinance sector. It is based in Centurion and reports to the Department of Higher Education and Training. BANKSETA is funded primarily through the mandatory Skills Development Levy, 1% of payroll paid by qualifying employers in its sector, of which a portion is returned to levy-paying employers as Mandatory Grants, with the remainder allocated to sector priorities through Discretionary Grants, including bursaries, learnerships and internships.

Unlike a corporate donor, BANKSETA does not fund bursaries as corporate social investment; it does so because it is legally mandated to address scarce and critical skills in banking and finance and to support transformation and employment creation in the sector, as set out in its Sector Skills Plan. Its bursary programmes support both employed and unemployed learners studying banking-, accounting-, finance-, economics- and IT-related qualifications, alongside adult education, SME support and sector research, all funded from the statutory levy pool rather than voluntary company giving.

Because BANKSETA itself is not an employer, its bursaries generally do not carry a work-back obligation to BANKSETA directly; some of its programmes, particularly learnerships and internships, include structured workplace components with partner employers, but publicly available information does not describe a bonded return-of-service owed to BANKSETA for its standard bursary awards.