The South African Reserve Bank asked the National Credit Regulator to launch an investigation to determine whether Capitec Bank Holdings Ltd. continued to offer problematic multi-loan products, the central bank told Reuters.

"The continued use of multi-loan products is a market conduct issue and falls within the [regulator's] responsibilities," the central bank said.

The South African Reserve Bank earlier said it found no instances of rescheduled loans being issued by Capitec to hide nonpayment of loans and show an artificial lending growth, Reuters said in a separate July 3 report.

In January, short-selling firm Viceroy Research asked the central bank and the South African finance minister to place Capitec Bank into curatorship, saying the lender was engaged in "predatory finance."

Capitec had denied wrongdoing, saying it terminated such products in 2016, but Viceroy Research said the lender only rebranded the loans, Reuters reported.