Author: Gugu Lourie

Discovery Bank, part of Adrian Gore’s Discovery Group, said on Wednesday that new business volumes continued to be strong, achieving more than 800 average daily new-to-Bank sales (vs 500 in June 2021). Discovery Group said the bank is showing significant progress toward a medium-term target of 1 000 sales per day and 1 000 000 clients by 2026. The Bank has also continued to attract high-quality clients, resulting in high levels of average non-interest revenue (NIR) and a low credit loss ratio of 1.56%. However, Discovery Group informed investors that Discovery Bank’s operating loss for the financial year was R990 million,…

Rider-hailing company Uber has launched a new feature on its platform enabling you to record audio while on a trip in the event of an emergency. Uber is piloting the feature in Pretoria and Johannesburg. The new feature will now allow riders and drivers to use the app to record and share audio of their trip as evidence in case of a safety incident. This is something that drivers have been asking for based on their feedback from roundtable sessions. The new opt-in audio recording feature has been successful in the US and Latin American regions where Uber has a…

Fixed broadband speeds in South Africa doubled over the past three years – from 15.11 Mbps median download speed in Q1-Q2 2020 to 31.34 Mbps in Q1-Q2 2022, benefiting from increased competition and growth in Fibre to the Home subscriptions, a report by speed test service Ookla revealed on Tuesday. China topped the rankings across the BRICS countries, posting a median download speed of nearly 160 Mbps. South Africa, meanwhile, finished last, indicating that South Africa still has room to grow in terms of fixed broadband performance and adoption. Ookla said Gauteng, home to the country’s largest city, Johannesburg, had the best…

Johannesburg performed well across the five cities we looked at in terms of median download and upload speeds, a report by speed test service Ookla revealed on Wednesday. Ookla said download speeds in Johannesburg ranged from 25.53 Mbps to 51.49 Mbps, while in Port Elizabeth, speeds were much lower, ranging from 6.36 Mbps to 30.11 Mbps. “Typically fibre networks first reach rich and affluent communities that present a fertile ground for their services. For example, a northern suburb of Johannesburg–Parkhurst–was Vumatel’s first suburb.” Ookla added that across the nine South African provinces, Gauteng is the smallest by land mass, but…

Cool Ideas is ranked first among South Africa’s Internet Services Providers (ISPs), reaching almost 50 Mbps symmetrical speeds, with a 48.32 Mbps median upload speed and 47.89 Mbps download speed, a report by speed test service Ookla revealed on Tuesday. Afrihost, Webafrica, Vox Telecom, Axxess, and Rain achieved median download speeds in excess of 30 Mbps. Ookla said operator performance in the region could be heavily impacted by the technology offered, with pure fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) provider Cool Ideas topping our rankings. Ookla, which owns and operates the popular speedtest.net Internet speed testing service, published its latest Speedtest Global Index rankings for South Africa for…

Woolworths reported today a 45.4% surge in online food sales as the retailer benefited from the further rollout of its on-demand online offering. The Woolworths Food business grew turnover and concession sales in the second quarter by 4.6%, with trading momentum improving throughout the period, as Covid-19 base effects eased. Sales for the full year grew by 4.2%, and by 3.1% in comparable stores, reflecting the impact of the high base and the return to out-of-home consumption, an increasingly competitive backdrop, and low product inflation across our key categories. Price movement averaged 3.5% for the full year, with underlying product…

South African banks will fully transition to digital banking within five years as consumers embrace digitisation. A new report on the future of retail banking drafted by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on behalf of Discovery Bank found that more than two-thirds of South Africans (69%) believe that the country’s banks will transition to a fully digital banking system within five years. The Discovery Bank-BCG survey also found that most South Africans (60%) believe that in just five years, there may be no need for banks to have physical branches. The survey was based on responses from 1,000 consumers from all walks…

Swift intervention by the Financial Intelligence Centre’s Fusion Centre has seen government recover R659 million to the fiscus deemed to have been proceeds of crime. Through the Fusion Centre, the FIC’s crime fighting public-public collaboration has secured several positive outcomes, including the preservation and recovery of pilfered public funds. In a statement, the FIC said the two-year-old Fusion Centre had secured achievements in improving efficiency in financial investigations related to corruption, fraud, abuse of power and maladministration. “In addition, the collective work of the Fusion Centre has resulted in the recovery of tax revenue, identification of fraud in the temporary…

MTN today informed investors that negotiations to buy South Africa’s Telkom are still in progress. “Shareholders are advised that discussions are still in progress which, if successfully concluded, may have a material effect on the price of the Company’s securities,” MTN said on Monday. “Accordingly, shareholders are advised to continue to exercise caution when dealing in the company’s securities until a further announcement is made.” Last month, MTN announced that it was in early talks to buy Telkom, the partially state-owned fixed-line telephone operator. Africa’s largest mobile phone operator said in a statement it had entered into discussions to buy…

EasyEquities, which is 70% owned by JSE-listed company Purple Group, has reached terms with an e-wallet provider (Provider) in the Asia Pacific Region. The company will launch investing services within the Providers e-wallet Application (e-wallet APP). The Provider will offer the EasyEquities investing services to its significant user base in the region, comprising tens of millions of users, through its e-wallet App. The Provider has requested for limited disclosure at this time so as not to pre-empt the commercial launch of the product planned for September 2022. “This is an exciting opportunity for EasyEquities and the Purple Group to expand…