The concept of Life Rights in real estate has become a popular retirement model across the globe.
Last week National Treasury announced that it was postponing the the implementation of the proposed two-pot pension fund system by a year, following public consultations in September regarding the proposed system. Initiation is now set for 1 March 2025.
The amendments to Regulation 28 of the Pension Funds Act at the beginning of the year were warmly welcomed by local private equity players.
According to media reports mutual societies are enjoying a renaissance in the financial services sector in some parts of the world.
Predicting investment risk is challenging for a plethora of reasons, including the complexity of markets, the uncertainty factor, and of course basic human behaviour, As many industry experts and personal finance posts have professed, it is important to acknowledge that risk in the financial markets can never be completely eliminated.
An application has been made to the High Court of South Africa in the Western Cape by a small CIPC-registered private company, called HoldSA, to have well-known money manager Andrew Canter declared a delinquent director.
If you’ve never heard of the term Girl Math, neither have I until recently. It is a social media trend where young women (and Generation Z in particular) justify how they spend their money, especially on non-essentials.
It is the last week of wills month, which is an annual awareness campaign around a very important part of estate planning. Planning one’s own mortality is often the last thing on anybody’s mind, but failing to draw up a valid will or a proper plan can leave questions around your dying wishes – and leave your loved ones with unanticipated costs onto your estate - opportunity and otherwise. This can include legal, and administration costs, as well as executor’s fees and estate duties. And trust me it all adds up.
The Government Employees Pension Fund chairperson Dondo Mogajane launched the GEPF’s Transformation Policy last week, marking a watershed move for economic transformation in South Africa. The policy, unveiled at the GEPF Annual Thought Leadership Conference 2023 in Cape Town, will throw the full weight of Africa’s largest pension fund behind promoting socio-economic development and addressing historic inequalities within the country and the financial sector.
Woolworths recently announced the launch of a comprehensive pet insurance product, WPetInsure, which became available in mid-August 2023. It included a range of customisable plans designed to “cater to diverse lifestyles and budgets”. The company said in a press release, their cover encompasses medical expenses, routine care, hospital stays, and even transportation. Checkers did the same thing one or two years ago by offering a number of insurance options that are underwritten by OUTsurance.
There is very little which is not taxed in South Africa, from sales to sins, even savings. As a matter of fact, the South African tax system is structured in such a way that it actually punishes investments and income generation. The more wealth you create, the more taxes you have to pay.
Each year, global financial planning professionals come together for World Financial Planning Day to help raise awareness of the value of financial planning and the caveats that come with it.
At last month’s South African Institute of Taxation Tax Indaba, trusts were on the agenda again. And the South African Revenue Service (Sars) new measures of ensuring trusts are run as separate entities (such as companies) on a real-time basis and not on an ad hoc basis in an attempt to prove compliance, was very much part of the conversation.
Rich people have always used their equity portfolios to tap into cheap loans and avoid large tax bills.
Women’s month has come and gone, but their financial deposition has not. According to the latest Experian Consumer Default Index (CDIx) for the second quarter, South African women account for half of the total amount of consumers on the credit bureau. This means that in terms of being credit-active, women are fairly represented in the credit economy. From a credit exposure perspective, however, only R0. 8 trillion out of the full R2. 18 trillion in outstanding debt is associated with women.
Sweden’s government said this week it planned to abolish a tax on plastic bags as of November 2024, a move heavily criticised by environmental groups. “We’re convinced that the Swedish people use plastic bags wisely in their daily lives and that there’s no reason they should be extra expensive,” Climate Minister Romina Pourmokhtari told Swedish broadcaster SVT.
It is National Wills Week, the annual national awareness campaign championed by the law society, that looks into one very important part of estate planning - having a will.
Legendary investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett turned 93 this year, and according to Forbes, he is worth $106 billion. That means on average he’s earned over $3. 5 million every day of his life. Much has changed during his tenure, but he has always been consistent in his opinion, that “investing is simple, but certainly not easy. ”
According to the National Credit Regulator’s (NCR) Credit Bureau Monitor for March 2023, South Africa currently has 27. 07 million credit active consumers with 90. 44 million accounts in the country. The number of consumers with impaired records increased to 9. 82 million whilst the number of impaired accounts increased from 19. 09 million to 19. 13 million. It further indicates that 6. 8% of consumers missed one or two instalments, 16. 05% missed three or more, 4. 25% had adverse listings and 0. 86% had judgements or administration orders. The NCR is a South African government agency that regulates the credit industry in the country.
I still have so many questions around the South African Reserve Bank’s (Sarb) year-long investigation and report into the controversial Phala Phala scandal.
In March, reached the 20 million clients milestone and it now owns the biggest market share compared to older banks. We have Francois Viviers, Group Executive: Marketing and Communications at Capitec in studio today to talk us through the business of banking and lessons learnt with client experiences when it comes to money safety and cybersecurity.
When the proposal to regulate religious practitioners in South Africa was put forward by the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities in South Africa in 2017, it was heavily criticised from various avenues. The Commission had been asked to review some, at times, scandalous behaviour of some religious leaders who have been accused of endangering and defrauding the members of their congregations. The Commission’s recommendations were the result of an investigation into the “Commercialisation of Religion and Abuse of People’s Belief Systems. ”
Today we talk about debt review. I recently wrote a Rants and Cents column, on the matter stating that the process is not the be-all and end-all of becoming free of debt, as a matter of fact, it is an expensive exercise and there are a lot of chance-takers out there. I was even threatened with legal action by some of them after I reported some of their misleading and paid-for advertising on Facebook.
Upfront bonuses being offered by insurance companies to financial advisers to entice them to leave their current employer and join the competition were prohibited by the former Financial Services Board (FSB), which is now the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), way back in 2014.
The audit profession has been in the news plenty over the years and all over the world, and never for the right reasons. From the Enron scandal in the US that brought Arthur Anderson down with it to the Wirecard impropriety in Europe, which saw Germany's accounting watchdog fine EY and ban it from some audits in the country.
