RESERVE BANK INVESTIGATION: DA finance chief steps aside over conflict of interest concerns in R4bn forex probe

The DA’s Mark Burke has stepped down from Parliament’s most important financial oversight committees as the SA Reserve Bank continues to investigate a company he founded for alleged violation of foreign exchange control regulations.

The DA’s head of finance, Dr Mark Burke, stepped down from his oversight roles on two powerful parliamentary committees on Wednesday, 19 August. The party’s caucus moved in to set right its first instinct to tough out a damaging revelation.

Deputy Finance Minister Ashor Sarupen, who is also DA Federal Council chairperson, the second-in-command to party leader Geordin Hill-Lewis, initially protected Burke’s roles.

Business Day first reported that the SA Reserve Bank (Sarb) had frozen fintech company Kastelo’s accounts. Burke co-founded the company with his brother, Nicholas, who is CEO.

Kastelo rode high on the red-hot crypto market and engaged forex arbitrage at a mass scale by cutting in investors with access to forex allowances, but not necessarily the cash to use them. By Business Day’s account, it transferred R4-billion out of the country to trade crypto.

“The initial response was based on the initial media reports that attempted to attribute acts to Mark personally. The party, as well as Mark, considered the conflict of interest matters very seriously and Mark voluntarily agreed to step out of the finance cluster,” Sarupen told Daily Maverick.

TimesLive reported that Burke was summoned to a meeting with Hill-Lewis on Tuesday ahead of a DA Federal Executive meeting on Wednesday that would consider the matter.

Sarupen said that Burke had declared the litigation against the Sarb in October 2025, while the MP said that he had recused himself from any meetings of the central bank at Parliament. A source in the DA caucus who is not authorised to speak to the media said there had been some debate about whether the party’s finance chief should step down.

The Kastelo application to have its account unfrozen also cited Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana as a respondent, requiring a wider recusal regime. News24’s Carol Paton reported here that Burke did not always recuse himself from all relevant meetings.

In a January 2026 judgment handed down after Kastelo sought an urgent application against the Sarb, the company’s method is detailed.

Sarb’s Financial Surveillance Department (FinSurv) alleges that Kastelo’s cryptocurrency arbitrage business may have contravened South Africa’s exchange control regulations, after receiving information from Kastelo’s bank, whistleblowers and some clients.

The arbitrage exploited the difference between offshore and South African crypto prices.