Tag: SouthAfrica

Businesses are expanding across borders. New trade corridors are emerging. Regional ambition also remains strong. However, liquidity, payment and execution challenges continue to shape the reality of doing business across Africa. Six months into 2026, African trade is growing, but it appears to be telling two stories at once.

South Africa's new South African Revenue Service (SARS) Traveller Declaration is part of a global shift that's redrawing the business travel checklist. Border and customs compliance has always been something travellers dealt with at the airport. However, that is no longer the case.

What’s in a name? As birding grows in popularity, more people are beginning to appreciate that birds carry not only ecological significance but also unique stories embedded in the names they have been given. South African Birds by Name provides insight into the origins and meanings of these scientific names. Most are rooted in Greek and Latin. The book helps readers better understand the species they encounter.

South Africa’s mining sector has long been shaped by migrant labour systems. Employees travelled vast distances from rural homes to industrial centres. For decades, hostel accommodation supported this reality. Although functional in many respects, it ultimately proved undesirable and unsustainable for our social fabric.

Small and Media Enterprises (SMEs) are regularly rejected for funding, even when their businesses are profitable, because the system was not designed with their business reality in mind. SMEs contribute around 40% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and 60% of employment. Yet they face the SME funding gap, which is estimated at R350 billion. There is no shortage of funding in the system.

The National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB’s) updated statement on the Draft Capital Flow Management Regulations has moved South Africa’s crypto regulation debate into a more practical phase. Just as importantly, Treasury and SARB have clarified that the draft regulations are not intended to criminalise the possession of crypto assets or apply retrospectively.

South Africa should carefully assess how short-term instalment products are interpreted before Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) data shapes access to mainstream credit. The country could risk turning BNPL into a product that shuts people out of mainstream credit rather than helping them into it. This could happen if BNPL data enters credit-scoring systems that were never designed to interpret this type of product fairly.

Artificial intelligence has constantly been written about for the past three years. The hype, the digital transformation it promises, the productivity gains, and the threat to jobs, particularly in professional services, and finance, specifically. It is a topical and sometimes divisive subject.

Lidia Rauch was born at the crossroads of South Africa’s past and present. She is the granddaughter of one of apartheid’s longest-serving ministers, Fanie Botha. She grew up in a world built for her comfort, yet she chose to reckon with its cost. Her story moves between privilege and pain, from a childhood marked by fracture to a career inside the machinery of government.

Personal problems rarely stay at home. In modern workplaces, financial pressure, emotional stress, family responsibilities and health concerns often spill into performance, morale and team dynamics. As a result, employers must balance operational demands with empathy, fairness and legal compliance.