Author: Gemma Ritchie
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How South Africans are changing their banking habits
South Africans are moving away from traditional banking halls and physical cards to banking on smart devices and cellphones. Standard Bank clients spent R9.3-billion using digital wallets in the past year. It sounds incredible, until you compare it with FNB clients, who spent R31-billion using their smart devices in the six months between July and…
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Mobile money: Sub-Saharan Africa leads banking revolution with nearly half the world’s accounts
Sub-Saharan Africa has dominated the global mobile money landscape since 2013, and now boasts twice as many registered accounts as South and East Asia and the Pacific. According to the GSMA’s 2024 state of the industry report, the region has 835-million registered mobile money accounts, nearly half of the world’s 1.75-billion accounts. Last year, 62-billion transactions worth $912-billion were processed in Sub-Saharan…
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As Venetia mine transitions underground, SA’s diamond production drops to 6m carats
Diamond mining production in South Africa has hit a 10-year low. The country was producing an average of 8.5-million carats a year, but by 2023 this had dropped to 6.1-million carats. The reason for this is that De Beers’ Venetia diamond mine reached the end of its open-pit operations in December 2022. The mine, which…
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Municipalities owe Eskom R78bn – and energy minister is pessimistic about recovery
South African electricity and energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says South Africa’s municipalities owe power utility Eskom R78-billion. At a recent media conference, the minister expressed doubt that Eskom would be able to recover these funds. Municipal debt has increased almost six times since 2018. Just 28 municipalities collectively accounted for R26.7-billion in March last year.…
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Younger, bigger and GNU: Ramaphosa breaks records with coalition cabinet
When he announced his cabinet on 30 June, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that although he had hoped to reduce the number of portfolios it had not been possible as he wanted to include ‘all the parties’ in the Government of National Unity. To do this, he has added new portfolios and new posts. The new…
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SA’s mayoral churn: 3+ mayors in 3 years for these 15 municipalities
Although coalitions may be relatively new at a national level, local municipalities are all too familiar with the idea of power sharing. Almost one-third of South Africa’s municipalities had no party with an outright majority after the 2021 local government elections so were run by coalition agreements. Of the 213 local municipalities and metros, 71 had…