In December 2025, the SARB announced that JIBAR would stop being published after 31 December 2026. Since September 2026, however, that date had become uncertain because of delays in the promulgation of the tough legacy legislation, as contained originally in the draft General Finance Laws Amendment Bill (Bill). This week, on 3 November 2026, the SARB confirmed that it has revised the cessation date to 31 May 2027. This supersedes the 31 December 2026 date.

The amendments to the Financial Sector Regulation Act 9 of 2017 (FSRA) which were proposed in the original Bill would give the SARB power to move ‘tough legacy’ contracts from JIBAR to ZARONIA. In September, Parliament raised concerns with the Bill, pursuant to the Constitutional Court’s ruling of 17 September 2026 in relation to the Public Procurement Act 28 of 2024, an amendment to which is contained alongside the amendment to the FSRA, in the Bill. The SARB has noted that market participants need this legislative solution to be in place well before the cessation date, and that the five-month extension is intended to allow the legislative process and the steps required to operationalise the solution to be finalised.

The SARB also shared that it intends to use Term ZARONIA, administered by FTSE Russell since its appointment by the Market Practitioners Group in April 2026, to determine Synthetic JIBAR, which will be one of the designated replacement benchmarks for tough legacy contracts. Term ZARONIA will be available for use in specific cases, which the SARB will define shortly. FTSE Term ZARONIA had its production launch on 3 November 2026 too.

The SARB has stressed that the extension does not change the direction of the reform programme and that ZARONIA remains the preferred successor rate to JIBAR. Market participants are still expected to reduce their reliance on JIBAR, maintain the momentum of their transition programmes, use the additional time to address outstanding contractual, system and operational requirements, and increase their use of ZARONIA in financial contracts.

Key takeaways

• Transition work should continue to progress, as the extension is a delay, not a change in direction.
• Agreements already amended to switch to ZARONIA on a hard-coded date on or before 31 May 2027 do not need to be revisited.
• The credit adjustment spread for transitioning JIBAR to ZARONIA remains fixed as at 3 December 2025. This ensures that contracts can continue to transition smoothly.
• The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has confirmed that it will be extending the 20 November 2026 submission deadline and providing revised communication. Until that communication is published, issuers of listed debt instruments should monitor any official revisions by the JSE to the submission deadline and the broader transition timeline considering the revised JIBAR cessation date.

ENDS