Business Report:
The South African Reserve Bank has hiked the repo rate by 50 basis points to 12 percent, the bank’s governor Tito Mboweni said on Thursday following a Monetary Policy Committee meeting.
This raised the prime rate that banks charge their clients to 15.5 percent.
Mboweni had last month threatened a 200 basis points increase due to the country’s high inflation figures.
Most economists had forecast a 100 basis points rise in the repo rate.
All 22 economists polled by Reuters predicted the repo rate would rise, with 18 forecasting a 100 basis point …

Business Report‘s Ethel Hazelhurst:
“South African consumers most commonly access credit through retail store cards. Carel van Aardt, a research professor at the Bureau of Market Research at Unisa, said more than 16 percent of South Africans – about 5 million – used store cards.
The calculation was based on the findings of the all media and products survey (AMPS) conducted last year, he said. The figure related to the number of people accessing credit; the rand value of the credit was not covered by the survey.
He said the high proportion of …

Business Report’s  Ethel Hazelhurst:
“Confirmation came on Friday that the 4.5 percentage point rise in interest rates over the past two years is finally yielding results. Data released by the Reserve Bank showed that credit growth slowed sharply over the 12 months to April. Over the past few months, the declining trend is reflected most clearly in credit extended to the household sector.
The monthly increase in household borrowing has dwindled since the start of the year, from R58.7 billion in January to R15.9 billion in February, R9.7 billion in March and …