Finance & Equity

FICA Compliance and Penalties are becoming critical considerations for South African businesses, as non-compliance can lead to severe financial and reputational consequences.

Television series like Breaking Bad and Ozark reflect the public’s fascination with money laundering and its criminals. Yet, in reality, laundering is far more sophisticated, dangerous, and far-reaching than the fictional exploits of Walter White or Marty Byrde. Unregulated gambling and financial crime are increasingly interconnected, providing criminals with new avenues to launder illicit funds globally.

Imagine a world where finance and accounting professionals could process vast amounts of data in seconds, quickly identify patterns and anomalies and provide real-time insights into their companies’ performance. Wouldn’t that be great? Well, that future is not as far off as you might expect.

Read our exclusive cover story titled CFO “cheat sheet” - what are the 5 crucial financial focus areas? by Rowan De Klerk, CEO, The CFO Centre, plus a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics.

Strengthening digital verification methods in financial services is essential to combat fraud, ensure regulatory compliance, and enhance customer trust in today's rapidly evolving digital landscape. Digital onboarding and real-time transactions are key to delivering a slick customer experience for financial services today. However, this open trading world has created gaps for financial criminals, including money launderers, terrorist financiers, and fraudsters, to exploit.

The growing trend of stokvels and the seasonal withdrawals during the festive season requires members to be vigilant and careful. Often, stokvels are formed at the start of the year to enable spending in December. As a result, we observe most withdrawals during this period.

Conversations about the war for talent in financial services have persisted for many years. Competition to attract skilled individuals has always been intense, with high demand for talented professionals. This competition has intensified recently as hiring activity accelerates to meet today's significant challenges.

Governance is crucial to economic development across Africa. With enhanced accountability and transparency, the continent can achieve substantial improvements in both the public and private sectors.

With Black Friday around the corner – a time when credit and account cards are in heavy use – we are urging consumers to stay alert against the rise in fraudulent activities. The increase is the use of online platforms for shopping and managing bills, opens us up to more advanced types of fraudulent activity, so preventing and minimising the risk of financial fraud is important.

So, your idea has taken off and is wildly successful. Next step is to franchise it and make some serious money, right? Not so fast: while the franchising model can be applied to almost any industry, not all businesses are ‘franchisable’. The first step to building a successful franchise is having a concept that has been growing well as a freestanding business, and being able to understand how the business operates and what is at the root of its success.