The Financial Services Board confirmed on Wednesday that it had received a request to probe the possibility of malpractice by Investec Asset Management.

"I received the request from Solidarity (trade union) today (Wednesday)," FSB chief executive Dube Tshidi, who is also the registrar of securities services.

"I have read through the document but I have not yet made a decision ... it will be analysed through our surveillance at the JSE (Johannesburg Securities Exchange)," Tshidi said.

"If there is a case, we'll deal with it."

Earlier on Wednesday, Solidarity said it had asked the FSB to investigate Investec Asset Management's actions following its announcement that the inflation rate was incorrectly calculated and that interest rates were – as a consequence – two percent higher than they should be.

A lower inflation figure made it unlikely that the SA Reserve Bank would hike rates – and the news benefited both the bond market and banking shares.

Solidarity alleged that the so-called "inflation announcement" was made to boost Investec's share price.

The union said that Investec's shares had surged by 17 percent during the week the announcement was made.

Solidarity has requested the FSB to launch an investigation in terms of Section 76 of the Securities Services Act of 2004.

On Monday in Business Report, Investec CEO Stephen Koseff denied the group benefited unfairly from the announcement released by its asset management unit.

Koseff told the newspaper that there had been a global rally in financial shares after "four out of five US banks" last week reported results that were better than expected.

Solidarity furthermore said it doubted Investec's calculations on inflation "for the simple reason that inflation should be calculated on figures only Statistics SA has access to".

Sapa