Mpumalanga Business 2017 edition

OVERVIEW
Banking and financial services
The Post Office bank will soon be offering loans.
SECTOR INSIGHT
The stokvel market is worth
R44-billion.
• Nedbank hosts a series of
small business seminars.
In a province with a high proportion of rural citizens such as
Mpumalanga, the prospect of Postbank being upgraded to a fullservice
bank is positive news. In 2016, the bank (part of the South
African Post Office, SAPO) received a first-level licence. Once a board
has been appointed and a company formed, the Reserve Bank is likely
to grant the full licence.
The current Postbank focuses on taking deposits and savings
accounts. Postbank has secured a R3.7-billion loan to enable it to
open its own loan book. The large geographical footprint of the
Post Office will make the bank easily accessible to even remote parts
of the country. National government wants the bank to serve a
developmental agenda.
Finscope’s 2014 survey of South African banking and financial surveys
shows that between 2004 and 2014, a remarkable eight-million
people were connected to the financial system in some way. Overall,
the “financially included” reached 31.4-million (up from 17.7-million in
2004). In a category called “formally served”, which includes services
other than formal banks with branch networks, the percentage of
South Africans so served grew from 50% to 80%; in the “banked” category
(more traditional but including new devices), the percentage
grew from 46% to 75%.
Although cellphone banking has not been a great successs in South
Africa (partly because the formal infrastructure is so good), banks and
cellphone companies continue to cooperate. Vodacom and Bidvest
are working on the mobile money M-Pesa scheme, Standard Bank
and MTN collaborate on mobile banking and there have been recent
moves linking Old Mutual and
Telkom, and Sanlam and African
Bank. Sifiso Skenjana has noted
in the Sunday Times that African
Bank has 400 branches and 150
000 people per month going
through these branches, so this
represents a huge potential market
for a financial services company.
Telkom is hoping that the
link-up with Old Mutual will prove
attractive to customers wanting
funeral insurance.
Skenjana also points out that
South Africa has a “stokvel” (savings
club) market valued at R44-
billion: Sanlam is developing
products to tap into that market.
Among other recent innovations
designed to reach the unbanked
were Teba Bank allowing
customers to deposit at supermarkets,
Pick n Pay Go Banking (a
division of Nedbank), the fact that
70% of Absa’s new ATMs (400 in
one year) were placed in poorer
areas and that Absa launched
two mobile banks, FNB also created
mobile branches and most
of Standard Bank’s new sites
were planned for townships.
(Finscope).
MPUMALANGA BUSINESS 2017
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