Expert resume of Jonathan Maphosa

Managing Partner - Maphosa Attorneys; former Nedbank Group Chief Legal Counsel and former General Counsel for Bankserv Africa; P.R.I.M.E. Finance Expert 

Jonathan Maphosa is the founder and managing partner of Maphosa Attorneys, a law firm with expertise in corporate and commercial law, banking & financial services regulation, mining & environmental and tax law.

Jonathan specialises in commercial law, banking and financial markets regulation, domestic and international payments regulation and corporate mergers & acquisitions. 

He regularly advises clients on the structuring and implementation of cross border financial transactions, bond issuances, the regulatory aspects of payment systems operations and the merger, disposal and acquisition of heavily regulated banking assets, in South Africa and other African markets. 

In 2016 Jonathan was appointed a member of the Expert Group for the review of the South African National Payment Systems Act and in 2019, appointed a P.R.I.M.E Finance Expert. 

Prior positions held by Jonathan include, amongst others, serving as Nedbank Group Chief Legal Counsel and General Counsel for BankservAfrica, the largest automated clearing house and payments system operator in Africa.  

Jonathan is the former Deputy General Counsel and Head: Monetary and Financial Law Division of the South African Reserve Bank where he provided specialised legal advisory relating to payments law, financial markets; international monetary arrangements, securities lending programs, bond trading, investment management agreements and held custody over the South African Reserve Bank’s suite of global master agreements.

Jonathan was lead legal counsel for the South African Reserve Bank in the negotiation of the BRICS multilateral Inter-Central Bank Agreement which governs the swap transactions and instruments ratified by all BRICS countries, with an initial value of US$ 100 billion. 

He has served on the board of the Corporate Counsel Association of South Africa (“CCASA”), a position he held for over 9 years, including as former CCASA President and board Chairman for the period 2014-2016. He was also a board member of the Association of Corporate Counsel (“ACC”) Docket Advisory Board, which is a board tasked with assessing the content, quality of and global reach of a legal publication which reaches over 35 000 in-house counsel across 75 countries.

A number of Jonathan’s articles are published in South African and international legal journals, magazines, websites and business media. He has published, as solo author, a book on green tax laws.

Jonathan is the 2014 Winner of the ACC Top 10 30-Somethings Award and Winner of the LegalWeek Africa Legal Counsel of the Year Award, 2015.  He is a Fellow of the Mandela Washington Fellowship (Georgia State University, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies).