Financial Services

The South African insurance industry is a regional giant, with nearly 80% of all direct premiums in Africa. The market is split into two regulated segments with separate legal frameworks and different representative bodies. The global financial crisis of 2008-09 had a deleterious effect on South African insurers. Both the long- and short-term segments faced internal challenges, such as lower...

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....

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...

The Kingdom’s insurance industry has traditionally been strong, regularly posting double-digit year-on-year growth, mirroring the expansion of the wider financial sector. The global financial crisis and recent political unrest, however, have presented the industry with a number of challenges in recent years. For example, the unrest made the implementation of the planned new mandatory health law...

A history of clear regulation and prudent oversight has served the Islamic financial services sector well in the challenging years since the onset of the global economic downturn. It also accounts for the sense of optimism within the sector, despite the challenges that are facing the broader global finance industry. In 2011 the opening of the Bahrain Financial Exchange added new depth to the...