Tag: savings

Healthcare in South Africa is in a state of flux due to a shifting regulatory landscape compounded by the current economic challenges the country is facing. This environment can be complex and challenging to navigate for most people, even if they have already purchased health cover products.

Saving money is all about sticking to very strict budgets, sweating while crunching numbers, and skipping out on fun to get serious about your finances, right? Well, according to South Africans it doesn’t necessarily have to be. Savings goals don’t have to equate to life becoming all work and no play. 

The 1400+ participants of our South African Consumers’ Financial Reality June 2022 survey results provide various insights concerning their current financial situation. Consumers are experiencing dire financial times, and thus, #SavingsMonth is no celebration this year.

A few weeks into 2022, an underlying investment theme started to emerge, that of a continued, broad-based recovery with strong economic performance across the globe. Evidence of this recovery was noted in the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) January 2022 statement.

Last year, in what was an exciting first for the financial services industry, Foord Asset Management published a beautiful children’s picture book about saving and investing. The book, More Than Enough, has been translated into three languages and is now available in isiXhosa, isiZulu, Afrikaans and English.

South Africa’s latest Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) for the second quarter of 2019 shows a three point increase to 93, presenting a marginally more positive quarter on quarter picture for consumer sentiment in South Africa. 

South Africans are well-known for their participation in stokvel saving schemes where members contribute a fixed monthly amount that is paid out to a specific member on a specified date. Employers can integrate these payments into existing processes to make it safer and more convenient for those members.

While women have made great strides in entrepreneurship over the past decade, female entrepreneurs still lag behind their male counterparts when it comes to raising capital. While the goal remains to close any funding gap that exists in this regard, a positive upshot has been that many women business owners have proved to be resource-efficient by necessity.

The rise of new technologies and fin-tech has made investing simpler, more transparent and cheaper than ever before, leading many to adopt a DIY-approach to their finances. So, in a world where investing is as easy as ordering take-out, what are the dangers of self-managing your investments, and why should you consider seeking professional financial advice?

With the recent significant investments made by hyper-scale cloud providers in South Africa, it is becoming increasingly apparent that cloud adoption is maturing in the local market, as enterprises realise that different aspects of their business require different platforms.