Star 2024-01-17

BLACK-OWNED digital TymeBank reached its first month of profitability in December, the first digital bank in South Africa and on the continent, to break even, CEO Coenraad Jonker said yesterday. Locally the bank managed to continue to grow in terms of the number of customers since its launch in February 2019, and now with 8.5 million customers, has set itself a “cheeky” target of being among the top three retail banks in South Africa within three years, Jonker said in an interview with Business Report yesterday. “In good months we can get up to 500 000 new customers, 200 000 in South Africa and 300 000 in the Philippines,” he said. He said they also planned to expand further into South-East Asia in the second quarter…

GOLD ONE HAS had to cancel another shift at its labour-relations troubled South African mine, with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) labelling management as “stubborn” and “useless” in the light of the company’s insistence on dismissing more than 400 workers for staging underground sit-in and hostage-taking protests. Ziyaad Hassam, the head of legal at Gold One, has told Business Report that the gold miner has suffered R12 million to R15m in lost production. In October and December, mineworkers at Gold One refused to return to the surface after their underground shifts ended as they protested against the miner’s refusal to acknowledge the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) as a labour union at the mine. In the past few days, Gold One has issued more than 300…

ROLLING blackouts imposed by the ailing State-owned entity, Eskom, pose the biggest risks to businesses in South Africa for 2024, according to the Allianz Risk Barometer. The barometer released yesterday revealed that critical infrastructure blackouts (load shedding) have emerged as the number one risk for businesses in South Africa for the second consecutive year, highlighting the severe impact of power outages and the failure of essential infrastructure such as ports, railways and roads on the economy and businesses. “The closely interlinked peril of energy crisis has climbed to the fifth position, up from sixth place in 2023. Cyber incidents and business interruption continue to hold the second and third spots, respectively,” the report said. Thusang Mahlangu, the CEO of Allianz Commercial South Africa, said: “South Africa’s business community must remain…

Last year it had seven countries that took part in a pilot of trading under the rules of AfCFTA THE AFRICAN Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat has vowed to extend the recently promulgated free-trade regime to 31 countries this year after a successful pilot project in seven countries last year. The AfCFTA is the world’s largest free trade area bringing together the 55 countries of the African Union and eight Regional Economic Communities to create a single continental market with a population of about 1.3 billion people and a combined gross domestic product of approximately $3.4 trillion (R63.5trln). AfCFTA secretary general Wamkele Mene yesterday said that they had seen the start of trading in earnest, with goods moving across borders, even though it was not to the…

CHINESE Premier Li Qiang said yesterday that the country’s economy was expected to have grown by around 5.2% in 2023, as he addressed an annual meeting of global elites in Davos. The figure would represent an improvement on the 3% recorded in 2022, when tight zero-Covid curbs hammered business activity. But it would still mean the lowest growth since 1990, excluding the years of the pandemic. “The Chinese economy generally rebounded and improved last year,” Li said in a speech at the World Econo- mic Forum (WEF). Our gross domestic product growth is expected to be around 5.2%, higher than the target of around 5%that we set at the beginning of last year,” Li said. Despite lifting health restrictions, the world’s number two economy is still weighed down by…

SIX LONGEVITY economy principles were revealed in a World Economic Forum (WEF) white paper to improve outcomes for ageing societies According to a new WEF white paper, Longevity Economy Principles: The Foundation for a Financially Resilient Future, released on Monday, “In 2020, 1 billion people were aged above 60; by 2050, this number is projected to have more than doubled to 2.1 billion. “For individuals to thrive in their longer lives, it is essential for businesses, governments, civil society, and individuals to intentionally address the demographic and financial realities of ageing.” The Longevity Economy initiative is part of the Forum’s Centre for Financial and Monetary Systems. More than 35 organisations had developed the Longevity Principles with a focus on how societies could ensure all individuals were able to…