Florence de Vries of Business Report:

“Despite promising signs of recovery in the domestic economy, South African consumers continue to face financial stress resulting from high levels of unemployment and their inability to afford necessary goods and services.

During the first quarter of the year the FNB/Bureau for Economic Research (BER) consumer confidence index rose to 15 from 6. However, in that same period financially vulnerable consumers in the income bracket of R30 000 to R100 000 a year were cashing in on endowment policies and accessing retirement annuities to cover household expenditures.

Unisa’s Bureau of Market Research (BMR), together with FinMark Trust, released the quarterly consumer financial vulnerability index (CFVI) last week, which showed that the cancellation of savings policies and access to retirement annuities among consumers continued to soar in the first quarter.”

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