Personal Finance Magazine Vol. 89 - 4th. Quarter 2021

It is amazing it has taken so long, but using your phone for money transactions is quickly becoming the norm. It looks like credit and debit cards in their physical form are on their way out (like buggy whips and CDs before them), though hard cash will be with us for some time to come… Africa is where this "movement" began and where it is having its strongest impact. Millions of people, who have until now avoided using banks for a number of practical reasons, are utilising easy-to-use, low-cost mobile money apps to make everyday payments, send money to relatives, and save. The cellphone networks are big players in this space. Read Anna Rich’s in-depth report on page 8. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been in the news recently, but are they here to…

WELCOME LESSONS FOR KIDS ON BECOMING MONEY-SAVVY Mrs Spiggles and her Money Tales – Money Messages for Kids Author: Jean Archary Publisher: self-published Available at Exclusive Books countrywide or for R200 from website www.mrsspiggles.co.za Many money problems that people face could have been avoided if financial literacy were taught earlier in life. Jean Archary is a financial wellness coach (she is a Certified Financial Planner, Certified Workplace Coach, holds a BA in Psychology and Communication and a postgraduate diploma in Advanced Tax), mother and author. She produced this children’s book to share important money messages with children, aiming to set them on a path to financial wellbeing as adults. Mrs Spiggles is like a fairy godmother in the form of a flying piggy bank. She imparts four key money messages in a series of short stories. The…

INHERITANCE FROM THE NETHERLANDS I am about to inherit from my deceased mother who lived in the Netherlands. I have a twin sister who will inherit half. The inheritance tax has been paid in the Netherlands. In rands, the amount is approximately R2 million. The funds will be paid by the Netherlands bank into a foreign currency account, which I have opened in order to keep the funds in Euros. The Netherlands bank will only pay into one account, so once the funds arrive in South Africa I need to split them in half and pay my sister her half. My question is: what are the tax implications for me and is there anything I need to know? I am assuming that because the inheritance tax has been paid in the Netherlands…

As part of the banked population, it’s quite possible to have only a vague notion of the mobile money phenomenon. “Mobile money enables you to receive, store, send and spend money using a mobile phone,” explains Gavin Krugel, co-founder and CEO of Digital Frontiers, a non-profit that fills the gaps in skills development training, such as digital financial inclusion, related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Krugel, an early pioneer in mobile payments, adds that mobile money came about by filling the financial services needs of low-income market segments. It allows you to access an e-money account, which is underpinned either by a bank or a licenced payment service provider, he explains. Mobile money relies on a network of agents (local stores or for-purpose outlets) to serve the customer. “Where bank clients go…

In 2020, there were 1.21 billion registered mobile money accounts globally, the industry processed over US$2 billion daily, and there were 5.2 million unique agents. Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the biggest market, with 548 million registered accounts, 159 million active accounts, and $490 billion in transaction value. And despite the economic fallout from lockdowns, the value of transactions increased by 23%. Zooming in further to southern Africa, there are 11 million registered accounts (up 24%), and 3 million of these are active (up 28%). The value of transactions amounted to $3 billion (an increase of 24%). But these figures pale in comparison with other African regions; for example, transaction values in East Africa were $273 billion, and in West Africa, $178 billion. (These figures are from the GSMA’s State of the Industry…

I had to look up the meaning of the word “fungible” when I first encountered the term “non-fungible tokens”, now referred to simply as NFTs. Wikipedia gives the following definition: “In economics, fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable and each of whose parts is indistinguishable from another part.” The Cambridge Dictionary defines something as fungible if it can easily be exchanged for others of the same value and type. So the opposite, “non-fungible”, therefore means something that can’t be copied, something that is unique. Examples are hand-crafted objets d’art, sculptures and paintings. In a world dominated by consumption-driven mass production, fungible goods are the norm: cars, television sets, painkiller drugs, bottles of cooldrink. However, to mass-produce a consumer item, assuming you had a factory with…