Author: Staff Writer

As more South Africans look for alternative energy sources to cope with loadshedding, Massmart, in partnership with Retail Credit Solutions (RCS), has introduced a solar energy funding solution for its customers. Massmart said in a statement the funding is available in the form of a loan of up to R250 000, which can be released within 24 hours through a convenient application process. The retail group offers flexible payment plans, where fixed monthly repayments can be tailored to the customer’s monthly expense budget. To achieve this the repayment period can be extended from 12 to 60 months. Varsha Dayaram, Senior…

Santam, South Africa’s short-term insurer, has entered into an alliance with MTN South Africa, that will see the company purchase the mobile telecommunication firm’s device insurance book. The acquisition, and alliance, is aimed to support MTN South Africa in broadening the reach of device protection to their clients, in line with the importance of devices in the lives of customers. MTN South Africa’s device insurance book currently has just over 400 000 policies and an annual Gross Written Premium value of nearly R400 million. Tavaziva Madzinga, the Santam Group CEO, said the acquisition was an opportunity to expand the company’s…

At the heart of the digital transformation of South Africa’s healthcare sector is the drive to improve the safety and care of patients. The world is moving towards the vision of ‘Smart Hospitals’ where even the hospital bed can serve as a data-collection and analysing device that monitors a patient’s well-being in real-time and creates alerts in anticipation of a patient requiring assistance. In the current healthcare environment, patients will encounter many care touch points, with data being created at each point along this journey. Health-related data is amongst the most private and sensitive of datasets, and there are a…

The new all-electric Lexus RZ 450e is the first model to be developed by the company as a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) from the outset. With it, the intention is not simply to deliver zero emission, all-electric driving, but to re-invent the BEV driving experience. To achieve this, the car has undergone extensive track testing and refinement at the Shimoyama Centre in Japan, a venue that is soon to be Lexus’ new global headquarters. The RZ is not a vehicle that simply adopts battery electric power in lieu of a conventional engine; it adapts exciting new technologies to enhance performance…

Eskom said on Tuesday that due to some recovery in generation capacity over the past 48 hours, loadshedding will be reduced to Stage 3 from 05:00 on Wednesday until 16:00. Thereafter, Stage 4 loadshedding will be implemented until 05:00 on Thursday. This pattern will continue as illustrated, until further notice. A further update will be published as soon as any significant changes occur. Over the past 48 hours, the repairs to the damaged towers from Cahora Bassa in Mozambique were completed and restored to full capacity. We have successfully returned to service a generating unit each at Arnot, Grootvlei, Kriel,…

Independent power producer Red Rocket has placed a 373 MW order for the Brandvalley, Rietkloof and Wolf wind parks, to be located in Western Cape and Eastern Cape, South Africa.  The contract includes the supply and installation of 64 V150-4.5 MW wind turbines, 12 V163-4.5 MW wind turbines and five V162-6.2 MW Enventus wind turbines. Vestas will service the wind parks through a 15-year Active Output Management 5000 (AOM 5000) agreement. Red Rocket’s CEO, Matteo Brambilla said: “Red Rocket has been investing and supporting South Africa’s electricity crisis for more than a decade and with a portfolio of more than…

Africa Data Centres has signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement with Distributed Power Africa; distributed Power Africa will supply 12MW of renewable solar energy for Africa Data Centres facilities in South Africa through wheeling; by working together, the two companies are also supporting several of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Africa Data Centres, a business of Cassava Technologies group, is pleased to announce it has signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with DPA Southern Africa Pty Ltd (DPA SA), a joint company of Distributed Power Africa  and the French utility company, EDF. Under the terms of the agreement,…

Jaguar Land Rover is partnering with Tata Technologies, the global engineering, product development and digital services company, to accelerate the digital transformation of Jaguar Land Rover’s industrial strategy. The first phase will include UK core production facilities, with solutions subsequently deployed to other global locations. Tata Technologies will deliver end-to-end integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to transform Jaguar Land Rover’s manufacturing, logistics, supply chain, finance and purchasing modules by bringing data and knowledge from multiple departments into one single source. The intuitive new user interface of Tata Technologies award-winning software will drive stability in operations, improving visibility both between teams…

As online shopping continues to grow in the country, customers are spoilt for choice on how and where they shop. Trends show that many South Africans are increasingly choosing to shop both in-store and online, or often simultaneously, before making a purchase. iVend Retail found 90.8% of South African consumers shop on mobile devices while in a physical store, while a Shopify study reported that 59% of consumers are likely to browse online and buy in-store, and 54% are likely to look at a product in-store and buy online. As online shopping continues to grow in South Africa – with…

 PayShap, South Africa’s first low value, interbank, real-time digital payments service, has been launched in the country. It is currently available at four participating banks in South Africa, namely Absa, FNB, Nedbank and Standard Bank with more banks expected to go live in the coming months. “Widely anticipated in the market and global payments community since its journey kicked off in 2017, we are extremely pleased to announce that PayShap is officially live,” says Mpho Sadiki, Head of Real-time Payments at BankservAfrica. With no waiting periods, South African bank account holders can now easily pay and receive money (up to…