Simon Stockley, who revolutionised the home loan industry in South Africa with the creation of SA Homeloans five years ago, has returned to South Africa after a stint in Saudi Arabia, bringing to market another mortgage lender with some interesting products.
Domestic workers now have an affordable and simple retirement savings plan that will make it easier for employers to provide for their workers’ retirement. The product launched by the Presidential Working Group on Women and Old Mutual forms part of a much larger initiative by PWGW to create a women’s retirement plan, writes Maya Fisher-French.
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/ 28 September 2007
To put it simply, we have houses and pension funds that are worth on average three times our annual after-tax income but, on a monthly basis, we spend more than we earn, which increases our debt levels and erodes our savings levels. This is why, for the first time in history, South African households have a negative savings rate, writes Maya Fisher-French.
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/ 17 September 2007
Even if most employed South Africans paid up to 15% of their salaries towards the new national social security system (NSSS), netting a whopping R54-billion, it would fall short of current flows into the pension fund industry by R18-billion. The problem with pension funds is not so much coverage of employed people, but rather that people are drawing on these savings before retirement.
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/ 10 September 2007
Travellers’ cheques could be your cheapest option when going overseas, especially in the United States, but are not always the most convenient currency choice. Thanks to the National Credit Act, banks are now required to disclose the full fees charged on a transaction, which highlights the cost of credit card transactions.
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/ 10 September 2007
In the next year, mortgage borrowers could see R15-billion disappear into the black hole of interest payments. While headlines have been focused on market movements, it is really the interest-rate hikes that have a far bigger effect on the financial well-being of South Africans.
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/ 10 September 2007
AltX has performed spectacularly in the past year with a return of 107%. The AltX index has performed much better than the Fledglings and Small Cap indices, which are up 42,8% and 46,4% respectively for the past 12 months. All the small cap guys have beaten the pants off the JSE Top 40, which is up 23,4%.
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/ 10 September 2007
Healthcare costs will be taking an increasingly bigger bite out of our pockets each year as medical inflation continues to climb far higher than wage increases. This was the bottom line at a panel discussion held at the Absa Healthcare Consultants’ Seminar last week.
In celebration of Women’s Month, Absa Private Bank has launched a private equity fund for women only. According to research conducted by Momentum, private equity funds have outperformed the FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index by 18% per annum over the past 13 years.
While everyone’s attention has been focused on the trials and tribulations of the life insurance sector, Sanlam has been quietly transforming itself into a diversified financial services company, focusing on home loans and money market accounts rather than life cover.