Personal Finance Magazine

The reasoning behind the government’s proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme is sound: medical treatment and care of an acceptable standard is becoming more and more beyond the reach of the average citizen. The private medical industry, including the medical schemes (despite their protests against rising medical costs), is a self-reinforcing clique. Service providers keep upping their fees, to unreasonable levels in many instances, and in response the medical schemes keep upping contribution levels (well above the inflation rate) while reducing or limiting the benefits available to members. This is resulting in a steady decline in membership across medical schemes. Turning to the public health system, we won't even go there – the decline in standards over the past two decades beggars belief. The major problem with NHI is not what it…

The Wise Investor – the beginner’s guide to investing in the stock market Author: Moroka Modiba Publisher: Penguin Books Retail price: R240 I hope this book sells really well, and I hope the people who mainly buy it are the millennials and younger generations who are blithely buying and selling shares (and other, more risky instruments) through share-trading apps on their smartphones. In the past, stock market investors formed an exclusive, wealthy man’s club. Thanks to technology, anyone can now invest directly in listed companies, at surprisingly low cost. However, this“democratisation” of the stock market has a down side: it has attracted many people who have very little comprehension of the risks. Knowledge is key: investing in shares can generate wealth if you know what you’re doing, but it can result in financial pain and…

DEALING WITH CHILDREN IN A WILL My husband and I have recently had our second child, and we’ve decided to put a will in place. We are not sure of how it would work with babies and young children, and what the difference is between a guardian and a trustee. What should we prioritise? Name withheld Denise Fourie, Wealth Adviser at PSG Wealth, Silverlakes, Pretoria, responds: This is a great question because, when dealing with minor children in a will, extra care needs to be taken. The first step would be to make any inheritance that is left to a minor payable into a trust – such as a testamentary trust, which is set up in your will. This type of trust comes into effect on the death of the founder, whereby assets and benefits…

Unless the government and private sector urgently work together to find solutions that are acceptable to all, South Africans will likely face a healthcare crisis within the next decade because of a number of factors that appear to be converging in a perfect storm. Private healthcare is becoming increasingly out of reach of anyone outside the top income brackets: medical specialists are charging what they like and getting away with it because they are in high demand and becoming scarcer as more of them leave the country; liability cover for certain specialisations such as obstetrics has become prohibitive; and new-generation, hi-tech treatments and drugs for cancer and other life-threatening conditions are costing in the hundreds of thousands, even millions of rands. Medical schemes are battling to keep pace with these rocketing costs,…

Investors in the South African economy, already familiar with the effect of policy complacency and mismanagement on their investments, may soon have to factor in the economic and financial value decimation caused by the country’s imminent greylisting in addition to the drag due to legacy issues such as credit rating agency downgrades, Nene-gate and State Capture. This follows the global Financial Action Task Force (FATF) giving government and the National Treasury until the end of October 2023 to address deficiencies in our anti-money laundering (AML) and counter financing of terrorism (CFT) legislation and enforcement, or face sanctions. A report commissioned by Business Leadership South Africa and published by Intellidex concluded there was an 85% probability the FATF will go ahead with the greylisting, a step that promises significant economic and financial…

Inflation is a global problem. At the end of August, it was 8.3% in the US and 9.1% in the Euro area. It is 20.3% in Nigeria, 25% in Malawi, and over 30% in Ethiopia and Ghana. The impact on Africa is devastating. The International Energy Agency estimates that by the end of the year 30 million more Africans will be unable to afford fuel for cooking. The World Bank estimates the number of Africans living in extreme poverty will increase from 424 million in 2019 to 463 million this year. There is no agreement on why this is happening. Some argue that it is primarily a supply side problem. The dislocations in supply chains caused by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have reduced the available…