Speaking in parliament recently, trade & industry minister Rob Davies complained that “developmental credit”, the kind used to start or sustain a small business, for example, “hardly features” in South Africa. Instead, in the wake of African Bank’s collapse, the focus has been on the evils
There’s a revolution under way, and this one’s not being agitated by the working class, although they certainly have their part to play. It is being waged by banks, cellphone providers and entrepreneurs hoping to capitalise on a mobile commercial market that is estimated will be worth more than US$800bn by 2016 and have more than 400m users
Banking systems have not typically made for riveting conversation outside of business IT circles. Today, however, banks, including those in South Africa, are doing some of the coolest things in the technology field. Nedbank’s low-slung building at the top of Katherine Street in Sandton has been the company’s technology and operations
Takealot made headlines last month when it secured about R1bn in funding from shareholder Tiger Global Management, an international investment firm. CEO Kim Reid told TechCentral when the deal was announced that Takealot is on an aggressive growth path in an effort to tap into what he called
Vodacom, the top-rated company in the Reputation Institute’s annual National RepTrak Pulse survey last year, has fared “particularly poorly” in the 2014 edition of the survey, falling to sixth position and behind rival MTN. The survey found that there has been a “bloodbath” in company reputations, with the exception
Capitec has displaced First National Bank at the top of a list that ranks how satisfied consumers are with their bank’s online facilities. The third annual “Internet Banking SITEisfaction” survey, conducted by online marketing research agency Columinate, has found that satisfaction among FNB clients has fallen
Four years in the making, technology entrepreneur Stafford Masie, through his company Thumbzup, has finally taken his mobile payments solution for smartphones commercial — through partner bank Absa. The mobile payment of sale system, called the Payment Pebble, allows merchants – typically small enterprises and
It’s the end of an era. This week Tuesday, 8 April, Microsoft is putting Windows XP out to pasture. It will stop pushing out public updates for the more than 12-year-old operating system, which once dominated desktop computing. Despite this, many banks worldwide, including those in South Africa, still make extensive
Absa’s transactional banking application for smartphones has been downloaded more than 300 000 times, the bank’s head of digital channels and payments, Adrian Vermooten, said on Thursday. Speaking at a press conference in Johannesburg, Vermooten said the app, which is available
In 2012, when the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) awarded a crucial social grants contract, its R10bn decision turned mostly on a “key feature” — something that had been offered by just one of the bidders. The contract was for the payment of about 15m in government grants every month
