Renee Bonorchis of Bloomberg:
March 27 — Standard Bank Group Ltd., Africa’s largest bank, fell for a second day after the lender admitted to breaking South African credit laws.
“Whenever there is contravention of the rules it points to a failure in risk management and compliance,” Jan Meintjes, a director at Gryphon Asset Management Ltd. in Cape Town, said in an e-mailed response to questions today. “This should raise some concerns.”
Standard Bank’s share price fell 3.10 rand, or 3.8 percent, 78 rand, after sliding 6.3 percent yesterday, the worst performer on the …

Mzwandile Jacks  of Business Report :
“The number of borrowers who were more than three months in arrears at the end of December had surged 14 percent year on year to 7.3 million, as levels of debt stress continued to increase, the Credit Bureau Monitor revealed yesterday.
This represented 42 percent of the 17.5 million credit-active consumers at the end of last year, according to the monitor, which is compiled by the National Credit Regulator (NCR). The number of debtors who were more than three months in arrears had increased 2.8 percent …

Business Report :
First Rand was hit by rising bad debts for the six months ended December 31, 2008, the financial services group said on Tuesday as it released its first-half results.
First Rand is made up of First National Bank, its retail and commercial bank, Rand Merchant Bank, its investment bank, WesBank, its instalment finance business, and Momentum, its life insurance business.
“The operating environment remained extremely difficult for the six months to December 31, 2008, characterised by further declines in asset prices, continued market volatility and a deteriorating economic outlook, both …

Reporter Ethel Hazelhurst of Business Report writes:
“While defaults on credit card loans are threatening another crisis abroad, the worst may be over in South Africa.
In the US, analysts expected a rise in credit card losses and warned that they might prolong the credit drought.
However, Graeme Holmes, head of Nedbank card division, reported an improvement in bad debt levels relating to credit cards over the past six months on Thursday, as “most of the candidates for bad debts are out of the system”.
In addition, borrowers were taking remedial action, according to …

With effect from the beginning of March 2009, the names of the High Courts in South Africa. The High Courts (previously Supreme Courts) are the courts in which generally matters exceeding the magistrates court jurisdictional limit of R 100 000.00, are sued out of. In addition the High courts have jurisdiction over certain other matters, such as sequestrations, which the magistrates court do not have jurisdiction over.
For businesses that use commercial agreements that refer to a specific High court they will now have to describe the court in which the …

Ethel Hazelhurst reports on Business Report :
“Evidence of slowing consumption continues to mount. The Reserve Bank said on Friday that growth in bank credit to the private sector had slowed to 11.85 percent over the 12 months to January2009, below expectations of about 12 percent.
The figure for December has been revised down to 13.6 percent from 14.04 percent.
One of the hardest hit categories is credit cards. Kevin Lings, an economist at Stanlib, said credit card growth had eased to only 2.6 percent year-on-year. The figure was negative if the impact …