News
Product releases, market developments and regulatory changes that matter to people moving money in and out of South Africa. Short, factual updates — what changed and what it means for you.
Macro Monday
Market Recap Looking back at last week, we saw a mixed bag of figures, the main highlight being the U.S. Federal Reserve Minutes and elections in the United Kingdom and France.
MicroStrategy’s huge gamble on BTC
MicroStrategy is a data analytics company, founded by Michael Saylor (who has since handed over the CEO post to Phong Le).
SA public sector workers earn 50% more than the private sector
Stats SA puts the average monthly salary in SA at R28,220 in the third quarter of 2024, which is 6.6% higher than it was the previous year.
SA’s evaporating manufacturing sector
The chart below is concerning on so many fronts. It shows manufacturing as a percentage of South Africa’s GDP falling from 25% in 1980 to less than 13% today.
Scam city
Most of us in the financial sector have had family members who fell for a scam of some sort.
Some thoughts on Davos
Social media had some fun with a picture of the unelected leader of the European Union, Ursula Von Der Leyen, stepping out of an Audi A8 6.3 litre 585 HP 12-cylinder monster as…
South Africa, we have a gambling problem
Thanks to some good reporting by amaBhungane , we have learned that gambling accounted for 17% of GDP in 2024 – a turnover of R1.14 trillion.
Stablecoins will swamp central bank digital currencies
Remember all the talk about central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and their potential threat to personal sovereignty – where the authorities can snoop on your purchases and put…
Take a look at which jobs are about to disappear
The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report for 2025 offers some interesting insights into the future of work in the next five years. It’s going to be a wild few years.
Taxpayer collapse imminent?
The Efficient Group’s Dawie Roodt recently told Jeremy Maggs some sobering facts about the state of SA’s finances: Fewer than 4% of taxpayers contribute almost 50% of personal…
The AI power crunch
While SA tries (and has largely succeeded) to solve load shedding, other countries are scrambling to build out power generators to feed the AI monster.
The rand weakens on US tariffs shock (and lower interest rates)
As we predicted at 80eight, the ZAR shot back above R18.20 to the USD on two developments over the last week – the imposition of 30% tariffs on US imports from SA, and the 25…