Author: Gugu Lourie

Mteto Nyati has been appointed as an independent non-executive director and Nedbank’s IT Committee member. His appointment is effective from 1 October 2022. Nedbank informed investors that Nyati’s appointment has been made in terms of the group’s policy on the nomination and appointment of directors. Mteto is Chairman of Wazo Investments, and a non-executive director of Telkom. Previous roles include being Chief Executive at Altron, Chief Executive of MTN South Africa, and Managing Director of Microsoft South Africa. He was named one of the Yale University’s World Fellows on Global Leadership in 2004. Mpho Makwana, Chairman of Nedbank Group, welcomed…

Brazilian FinTech company Ebanx is expanding its operations and payments solutions outside Latin America. The company said in a statement that it has started operations in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria in late August amid soaring demand for payments via mobile phones in recent years. Ebanx believes Africa is the next big growth frontier for digital payments and the digital market during the 2020s. Ebanx solutions in the Africa region will contemplate popular local payment methods including:   In South Africa: Instant EFT by OZOW, lets online shoppers access internet banking to make an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) that gets instantly…

Attacq, the JSE-listed REIT developing Waterfall City, today announced the resumption of dividends of 50.0 cents per share for the year to end-June 2022, representing a pay-out ratio of 80%, as well as an increase in distributable income per share by 34.2% to 62.8 cents. Attacq said its performance was particularly satisfying in the context of South Africa’s record unemployment levels and low-growth environment, and emphasised the underlying quality of the portfolio, characterised by continued growth in the burgeoning mixed-use Waterfall City precinct, which continues to attract quality local and global blue-chip corporate clients. “During the past year, we emerged…

TYMEBANK, one of South Africa’s digital banks, has attracted 5 million customers as of 30 June 2022. The digital bank owned by billionaire Patrice Motsepe was launched in February 2019. “While progress continues to be made on customer acquisitions, the bank is placing increased focus on tracking customer activity and ensuring new product rollouts,” African Raibow Capital Investments informed investors today. “The bank is continuously adapting its product set to reflect the changing needs of customers, which includes diversifying the customer base.” TymeBank has no monthly banking fees and in most cases, transaction costs are 30 to 50% lower than what customers would pay…

Eskom said this morning that three units at the Kendal Power Station tripped, forcing the power utility to implement stage 4 load shedding. Eskom said state 4 load shedding will start at 10am until 5am on Thursday. The power utility tweeted this morning: #Loadshedding #Stage4 A sudden tripping of three Kendal Power Station units (1 920MW maximum generating capacity) has forced the implementation of Stage 4 loadshedding starting at 10:00 THIS morning until 05:00 on Thursday morning. A full statement will be published shortly — Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) September 13, 2022 “In the early hours of…

Strong bi-national relationships between Nigeria and South Africa are critical for Africa’s progress,” said MTN Group Chairman Mcebisi Jonas. This week, MTN Group hosted MTN Nigeria’s Board of Directors and Executive Committee in Johannesburg for a strategy retreat during which the leadership of the Group’s largest subsidiary reflected on its strategic priorities for the next three years. “As MTN, we appreciate that our own progress cannot happen without the two nations building stronger and stronger ties and providing leadership to the continent,” said Jonas. The MTN Nigeria delegation was led by Chairman Ernest Ndukwe and CEO Karl Toriola. During the trip,…

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…