For Barclays to succeed in the new South Africa, it must strengthen newly acquired Absa's efficiency and then both must learn how to tap the country’s burgeoning black middle class. Meanwhile, their efforts are shaking up a heavily concentrated banking sector. 

Investec
Stephen Koseff, CEO

Two South African firms have launched successful high-yield debt issues. Edward Russell-Walling reports.
When South African corporates want to raise capital, the international bond market is not the first place they go looking. For most of them, it would quite literally be the last. But two groundbreaking South African high-yield issues may herald a change in attitude.

Should banks review their strategies for lending to poor customers? South Africa’s African Bank, a specialist lender to the country’s low-income, under-banked population, produced a 17.9% pre-tax return on assets in the year ending September 30, 2004.

The UK’s Barclays is investing close to £3bn in South Africa to get control of that country’s biggest retail bank, Absa – the biggest foreign purchase ever by the British group. The deal has been approved by regulators and has the support of sufficient shareholders to be successful, after almost a year of behind-the-scenes talks.

Successive presidents’ willingness to retain Trevor Manuel allowed time for harsh policies to bear fruit.

South Africa’s market potential lies in extending services to poorer, unbanked areas, so how will a foreign bank fair in this environment?

South African banking is on the right path for achieving its economic efficiency and consumer protection targets. South Africa’s banking sector is in good health, with banks well-capitalised and the total balance sheet growing markedly during 2003, according to a report released in July by the bank supervision department of the South African Reserve Bank.

South African company Aplitec saw a gap in the payments market and devised a cheaper alternative to the EMV standard. Stuart Theobald explains how this upstart company has stolen a march on the global card giants.
Smart cards have heralded a technical revolution in payments systems across the globe. But the industry smart card standard Europay Mastercard Visa (EMV) is not without its challengers. One that has caught the attention of Visa particularly is a small South African IT company called Aplitec.