Every year, we resolve to ‘do better’, change things up and be the best versions of ourselves. It’s easy to overlook one’s finances, but money should be a pivotal part of this process. Managing one’s finances and finding ways to cut unnecessary expenditure has never been more important and quite often we forget to declutter that all-important insurance contract. Your contract with your short-term insurer is automatically renewed. For most consumers, it simply ‘ticks over’ wi

At the January meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), South Africa’s repo rate was raised by another 25 basis points (bps) to 4.00%. This was fully priced in by the market beforehand and didn’t catch many off-guard. The more subtle surprise was that the South African Reserve Bank’s implied future path of policy rates was lower than that laid out at the November 2021 MPC meeting. Undoubtedly, many investors were preparing for the contrary. US inflation in December 2

Old Mutual Investment Group (OMIG) has announced the appointment of Robert Lewenson as the asset manager’s new Head of Responsible Investment (RI), effective 1 February 2022. He will replace the current Head of Responsible Investment, Jon Duncan, who is moving to Switzerland to join a private bank in an impact investment role. A longstanding member of the OMIG RI team, Lewenson brings a wealth of experience to the role, being integral in building up a strong RI capability wit

Thandie Mashego has been appointed as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) by the Eskom Pension and Provident Fund (EPPF) from 1 February 2022. Mashego will join the EPPF Executive team, bringing with her a wealth of experience as a Finance Executive. Thandie is a qualified Chartered Accountant with 23 years of experience in Finance and Investment management. She joins the Fund from WDB Investment Holdings where she has served as CFO since June 2016. She previously served as CFO of

The South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) raised the benchmark repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 4% during its January 2022 meeting as predicted by 15 of 16 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. This means that the prime lending rate of commercial banks will increase to 7.50%. This marks only the second interest rate hike in three years as inflation remains a huge concern and despite the economy still recovering from the fourth wave of Covid-19 i

Following the announcement that the Reserve Bank has increased the repo rate by 25 basis points to 4%, the Momentum Macro Research Team from Momentum Investments has released its research note titled, SARB raises interest rates to prevent a de-anchoring in inflation expectations.. Please see below, a summary of highlights from the team, as well as a downloadable PDF of the research paper. Highlights: The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) raised

In line with the consensus and our forecast, the SARB MPC delivered a 25bp rate hike to 4.00% in its first of 6 meetings scheduled for 2022. More hawkish forecasts meets a more dovish QPM: Though the decision to hike was less split than November (4:1 in favour of a hike, as we flagged in SARB to keep hiking rates as price pressures persist, dated 24 January), it was the implied repo rate path of its quarterly projection model (QPM) that probably surprised most, showing a st

As the Omicron variant continues to push new Covid-19 cases to previously unthinkable levels in large parts of the world, WHO leaders have once again warned that letting the virus circulate at this scale could result in the emergence of new, potentially more dangerous variants. “The more the virus circulates, the more opportunities the virus has to change,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, said in a statement last week. “Omicron will not be the last