OVERVIEW
Banking and financial services Choices for South African financial consumers are expanding.
Aspen has taken a secondary listing on the A2X. Credit: Hodari Properties
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spen Pharmacare is a specialit y pharmaceuticals company with a presence in more than 50 countries an d n ear l y 9 0 0 0 emp l oye e s . T h e co mp any ’s headquarters are in La Lucia Ridge north of Durban. Aspen’s production facilities are elsewhere, but the global headquarters offer a grand view of the Indian Ocean (and the roof of the headquarters of another giant South African company, Unilever South Africa) in an area popular with tax consultants and stock brokers. Aspen’s revenue in 2020 increased to R38.6-billion. Aspen’s decision to register a second listing on one of South Africa’s newest stock exchanges (the primary listing remains on the JSE) was a boost for A2X, which set out to attract secondary listings. Patrice Motsepe’s African Rainbow Capital is an investor in A2X. The announcement in December 2020 that Prosus was going to take a secondary listing on A2X raised the bourse’s total market capitalisation to nearly R5-trillion across 40 companies. Prosus, a consumer Internet group and technology investor, has a market cap of R2.7-trillion. Of the four new exchanges, Equity Express Securities Exchange (EESE) trades in Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) while ZARX and 4AX are targeting companies that are not listed elsewhere. ZARX has agricultural holding companies like TWK and Senwes among its first clients.
KWAZULU-NATAL BUSINESS 2021/22
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SECTOR INSIGHT MyMo is Standard Bank’s newest low-cost bank account. Together with real estate and general business, the financial sector in KwaZuluNatal accounts for 18% of gross domestic product (GDP). Big strides have been made in providing banking services to the previously unbanked but there is still a long way to go. The widespread use of smartphones is creating new opportunities for banks and other financial service providers to further close the gap. Standard Bank introduced the low-cost MyMo account in KwaZulu-Natal in 2020. With free electronic transactions, unlimited card swipes and a low
