This section includes information about the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), which occupies a prominent position in South Africa’s economic landscape. Today the JSE is recognised as one of the world’s leading exchanges connecting buyers and sellers in five different financial markets, namely, equities, equity derivatives, commodity derivatives, currency derivatives and interest rate products....
South Africa Financial Services
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Chapter | Capital Markets from The Report: South Africa 2012
This chapter outlines how South Africa’s well-capitalised banks have weathered the global economic crisis with aplomb, largely thanks to a robust regulatory environment. Rising competition and efforts to engage the large unbanked population have also helped the sector recover from the effects of the global downturn. At the close of 2011, the sector comprised 17 registered banks, two mutual banks...
South Africa lies on the southern tip of Africa, occupying 1.22m sq km with some 2800 km of coastline along the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The so-called “Rainbow Nation” has a population of around 50.5m and is a melting pot of ethnicities, cultures and languages that reflect its rich and tumultuous history.
The recent credit downgrade of five of South Africa’s largest domestic banks by one notch has prompted quizzical reactions from the government and local financial community, coming just as four of the banks announced improving earnings growth and a decline in bad debt.
Insurance sector leaders in South Africa are hopeful the country will not be too deeply impacted by the deepening debt crisis in Europe, with many policy writers expressing cautious optimism as the new year gets underway. The implementation of EU financial norms and a national health insurance scheme could prompt some changes in the sector in 2012.
Investment rates among black South Africans on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) have held steady over the past 12 months, despite market fluctuations and uncertainty over the local and global economy. Burgeoning pension and trust fund investments could also see increasing participation rates in South Africa’s black capital markets in coming years.