News that South Africa’s financial sector has agreed to an ambitious black empowerment charter has pushed financial stocks upwards. The government-endorsed charter sets down detailed empowerment targets for companies, paving the way for as much as 25% of the sector’s value to be in black ownership by 2010.

Significantly, the charter’s provisions are voluntary, although

lucrative public sector contracts are at stake. The African National

Congress government has won praise for its stand-off approach. Memories

are fresh of its botched opening gambit on the mining charter that

threatened nationalisation of mineral rights.

John Coulter, head of JP Morgan in South Africa and chairman of the

Foreign Banks Association, maintains the need for the charter was never

questioned; the achievement has been getting something that everyone is

broadly happy with.

“It’s a short-term cost but it has to be seen as longer-term investment in transformation and economic growth,” says Mr Coulter.

The charter’s aims are broad: increasing black representation within

companies; increasing procurement spend to “accredited” companies;

expanding financial services to low-income households; unlocking up to

R75bn (US$7.5bn) for the financing of black-owned businesses; and

raising corporate social responsibility spending. The charter comes

into effect at the start of 2004 and will remain in place for 10 years.

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