Platinum Wealth

They just don't make them like they used too.

Bank Zero announced it has been integrated with the national payments system of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and is set to begin trial runs in preparation for the launch of its banking platform. The bank’s CFO, Liné Wiid, said that settling directly with the SARB rather than through a sponsoring bank allows Bank Zero to control its own payments value chain and nurture a “savings culture”. “Creating a savings culture means shifting mindsets from ‘I want a car; I want expensive credit now’ to ‘I have a savings goal; I’ll buy a car later’,” Wiid said. Bank Zero CEO Yatin Narsai said that this alpha testing milestone is a major achievement, with most institutions investing billions simply to reach this stage. The bank’s Alpha testing phase will see a small team validating the bank’s end-to-end live systems and processes. Bank Zero said its approach to building a bank uses precise, “laboratory-style testing” and focuses on a number of key areas. These focus areas include building an integrated banking app, testing customer experience and on-boarding, completing disaster recovery tests, and complying with all regulatory reporting as required by the SARB. A new generation of bank card Bank Zero also announced it has collaborated with Mastercard to develop a “new generation of card” aimed at providing cutting-edge security and powerful, unique features. “We are excited to be partnering with Bank Zero in driving payment innovation while catering to the evolving needs of today’s connected, increasingly mobile and digital customers,” said Mastercard South Africa division president Mark Elliott. Mastercard added that it will provide the latest security protocols to protect Bank Zero customers from fraud and identity theft. The bank also announced it has partnered with IBM to implement enterprise-grade security on its servers, although it noted that it leverages a hybrid cloud model to deliver flexibility. “Building a bank is hard work; building an innovative bank is exponentially harder,” said Bank Zero co-founder and chairman Michael Jordaan. Bank Zero will begin beta testing during the first quarter of 2019 and expects public operations to begin around mid-2019. Source: Mybroadband

That is pretty neat, I have mine synced to my personal website to show my heart rate and steps etc. What I want to do next is get an electromagnetic magnet and a relay. The idea is to build a chest which is closed by this magnet which is controlled by the relay, which is controlled by my raspberry pi. So when I reach my step goal for the day, the chest unlocks and presents me with a sweet.

Welcome to Pages! Pages extends your site with custom content management designed especially for communities. Create brand new sections of your community using features like blocks, databases and articles, pulling in data from other areas of your community. Create custom pages in your community using our drag'n'drop, WYSIWYG editor. Build blocks that pull in all kinds of data from throughout your community to create dynamic pages, or use one of the ready-made widgets we include with the Invision Community. View our Pages documentation

The Employment / Job Offers forum is intended for Platinum Wealth members to post any job vacancies they may have. What is the 'Employment / Job Offers' forum for? This forum is intended for individuals or companies to publish offers of employment only. Making posts which do not conform to this description may lead to the post being moved, removed or the poster being suspended. If you are seeking an employee on other forums or auction sites, you may not present a post with only a link to those other sites. When searching for employees, try to include: Job description Job requirements Hourly/salary/project Detailed contact information. Please remember that not everyone can PM you. Anyone found to be intentionally "trashing" or "trolling" in another user's advertisement thread will have their account suspended. Negative comments on advertisements are not allowed. For example, if you think the salary is too low, leave the ad for other people to form their own opinions. If you think the offer is fraudulent, please contact either myself, @padjakkels or @Bandit

Capitec Bank Holdings Ltd gained the most in more than seven months in Johannesburg as the lender impressed analysts with its earnings and plans for growth despite a sluggish South African economy and the strains on consumers. The bank, which said Wednesday its client base increased to 10.5 million in six months from 9.9 million, advanced as much as 6.2%, the most since Feb. 21. Capitec said it will build a business-banking division as it diversifies away from riskier unsecured lending. First-half profit increased 20% from a year earlier. “It looks like a good set of results and it’s driven by strong fee growth as the transactional franchise gains traction in the market,” said Neelash Hansjee, a banking analyst at Old Mutual Investment Group. “The credit quality seemed to be under control, which is quite a good result in a tough economic environment.” The lender is among four bidders for Mercantile Bank, the South African unit of Portugal’s state-owned Caixa Geral de Depositos SA. Capitec expects to know the outcome by the end of next month, after completing due diligence in August, chief executive officer Gerrie Fourie said Wednesday. “They continue to look for more opportunities,” Hansjee said. “Over the last three years they have launched a credit card, they have launched an insurance product and now they are saying they want to get into business banking. That shows that the group is comfortable to diversify its growth and continue to disrupt the financial services market.” Capitec was 5.2% higher as of 1:29 p.m., outperforming its local peers and heading for its highest close since Jan. 25, a few days before short-seller Viceroy Research published a report that said the lender may be concealing losses. The bank denied the allegations. Avior Capital Markets analyst Harry Botha said Capitec’s latest earnings showed the divergent trends that the market had become used to — muted gains in lending revenue, and exceptional results from transactional banking. A focus on lower-risk customers helped to improved its credit figures. “In terms of the future, meaningful growth in Capitec’s credit business is still dependent on South African economic conditions,” Botha said. “The credit card business will provide a bit of support for lending revenues, but the trends, with transactional banking growth outperforming, will probably be the same as recent periods.” Source: Bloomberg

Welcome How did you find us?

South Africa has officially entered a technical recession, after Stats SA announced on Tuesday that the country's real gross domestic product had decreased by 0.7% in the second quarter of the year. This follows a GDP contraction of 2.2% in the first quarter. A technical recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. The first quarter's GDP contraction has now also been revised upward to -2.6%. This is SA's first recession since the 2008/2009 global financial crisis. Shortly after the economic data release at 11:30, the rand piled on losses against the dollar, falling to a daily low of R15.23/$, down 2.4% on the day. Ahead of the announcement in Pretoria, analysts at FNB had been cautiously optimistic that SA could avoid a recession, but said it would be a 'close call'. The ABSA Purchasing Manager's index for August, meanwhile, released Monday came in at a 13-month low. Agriculture takes a hit The largest negative contributors to GDP growth were the agriculture industry - which decreased by a whopping 29.2%, followed by the transport industry (-4.9%) and trade (-1.9%). "This [decrease in agriculture] was largely driven by a decline in the production of field crops and horticultural products," said Stats SA in a media statement. "Continued drought conditions in Western Cape and a severe hailstorm in Mpumalanga, resulting in extensive crop damage, also placed additional pressure on production in the second quarter." The main positive contributors were mining, up 4.9% and the finance, real estate and business services industry, which increased 1.9%. For the first time since Q1 2016, households also cut consumption expenditure, which decreased by 1.3% for the quarter. The biggest cuts were recorded for spending on transport, food and drinks, according to Stats SA. Government expenditure, meanwhile, grew by 0.7%. Total investment, also known as gross fixed capital formation, decreased by 0.5%. Net exports contributed positively to growth in GDP through expenditure. Exports were up 13.7% for the quarter due to increased trade in precious metals, mineral products and vegetable products. Imports increased by 3.1% and were driven by imports of mineral products, prepared foodstuffs, beverages and tobacco and vehicles and transport equipment, according to Stats SA. Fin24

President Donald Trump warned Alphabet’s Google, Facebook and Twitter "better be careful" after he accused the search engine earlier in the day of rigging results to give preference to negative news stories about him. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that the three technology companies "are treading on very, very troubled territory", as he added his voice to a growing chorus of conservatives who claim internet companies favour liberal viewpoints. “This is a very serious situation - will be addressed!” Trump said in a tweet earlier on Tuesday. The President’s comments came the morning after a Fox Business TV segment that said Google favoured liberal news outlets in search results about Trump. Trump provided no substantiation for his claim. "Google search results for 'Trump News' shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD," Trump said. "Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal." The allegation, dismissed by online search experts, follows the president’s August 24 claim that social media "giants" are "silencing millions of people". Such accusations - along with assertions that the news media and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia meddling probe are biased against him - have been a chief Trump talking point meant to appeal to the president’s base. More here: Fin 24

Cell C says its data is 28% cheaper than a year ago – but it is charging more for voice On a per-megabyte basis its effective price for data declined by 28%, year on year, in the the first half of 2018, Cell C said in an investor presentation released by its new parent company, Blue Label, on Tuesday. At the same time its data revenues increased by a fifth, as data traffic spiked by 62% compared to the previous year. The numbers are roughly in line with those reported by Vodacom in July, when it said its average data cost had decreased by 17.1% in the three months prior, with a 10% increase in revenue as usage spike. At the same time its customers continued to make old-style phone calls less and less, Cell C said, with a 10% year-on-year decline in voice traffic. However, its revenues for voice calls were down only 6% – because it effectively charged 3% more for every minute in telephone calls. Like other networks, Cell C is seeing customers shift to WhatsApp voice calling, or other similar platforms, as WhatsApp calls become increasingly cheaper than voice call. Cell C also report 60,000 "completed transactions" on its entertainment service Black, which competes with the likes of DSTV, though it said it had 260,000 people on free trials for the service.

South Africa might be in its ninth recession in the last 45 years. A sharp slowdown in economic activity and concerns about land and mining policy are weighing on investment Politicians are not helping. Economists at global bank HSBC have sent a note to clients this week warning that they expect the South African economy to have contracted in the second quarter. It’s expecting a marginal decline of just 0.1% on top of the first quarter's 2.2% contraction. Still, two quarters of contraction would mean South Africa was in a technical recession. “We now think data released on 4 September will show that South Africa contracted by 0.1% q-on-q in Q2 2018, tipping the economy into recession,” write economists David Faulkner and Thato Mosadi at HSBC Securities. The HSBC analysis reflects the worrying tone of a statement from Moody’s, the only global ratings agency that still maintains an investment grade on South Africa, that the country is not moving fast enough to cut the cost of a bloated civil service and its attempts at fiscal consolidation are just too slow. After days of sharp currency depreciation amidst fears of currency contagion from the Turkish lira crisis, the rand retreated sharply on concerns for the South African economy. Amidst the recent announcements of impending job cuts at Goldfields and Impala Platinum, HSBC warns mining, despite some optimistic one-month figures showing expansion in June of just over 2%, will contract over the quarter along with manufacturing and electricity output. If South Africa does see contraction in the second quarter, it will put the economy into its second recession in 18 months and ninth since the oil crisis of the early 70's. South Africa endured two recessions in quick succession in the early 90’s amidst deep concern about the shape the economy would take once the ANC came to power. The party’s commitment to openness and a free market economy led to a period of expansion not seen since the 1960’s and the economy grew uninterrupted between 1994 and the global financial crisis in 2009. If HSBC is right, this would be the third recession post the financial crisis at a time when the rest of the world has been seeing stellar growth. If we are completely honest with ourselves, South Africa has felt like its been in a recession this year, regardless of what the data shows. When we believe that the economy is tight we are less likely to spend, and to defer consumption as this week's retail sales figures for June suggested is the case. It’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. While considerable progress has been made in recent months in the long overdue clean-up in SOEs with new boards and in some cases new management teams being appointed, South Africa continues to score serious own goals. This week saw the Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe, speaking in his capacity as ANC chairperson, apparently break ranks with the president on land. Cyril Ramaphosa has always emphasised that land restitution will not come at the expense of food security. Mantashe’s assertion that farmers should be restricted to 12,000 hectares of land undermines that point. Since 1994, only a quarter of the commercial farmers have survived, some 35,000. Farming has consolidated with fewer and fewer agriculturalists being responsible for more and more food production. It’s not unusual for farmers nowadays to be cultivating in excess of 20 000 hectares, using less labour and equipment than ever before, to produce growing quantities of food. Land policy is confusing enough as it is, and Mantashe just muddied the waters even further. Still, despite the noise and the rhetoric, even some traditionally bearish economists are beginning to see signs that things are turning. The post Zuma-period of Ramaphoria is well and truly over as Rama-reality has set in. The building blocks for a recovery are being put in place. It’s just going to be a very noisy recovery. Bruce Whitfield is a multi-platform award winning financial journalist and broadcaster.

Disappointing local economic releases and a return of market fears around Turkey’s financial crisis put the JSE under serious pressure on Wednesday. The local bourse was buffeted by a cocktail of corporate and economic news, including downbeat retail sales data, a warning from ratings agency Moody’s, as well as a steep fall by market heavyweight Naspers. The all share lost 3.41% to 55,646.2 points, while the top 40 lost 3.76%. Gold miners slumped 7.9%, platinums 4.38%, industrials 3.8% and banks 3.34%. Naspers, which makes up 20% of the all share, fell 8.22% to R3,060.88 after its associate Tencent reported second-quarter earnings that were below market forecasts. Local retail sales data was also downbeat, growing 0.7% year on year in June, well below economist’s forecast of 2%. Along with recent downbeat economic releases, it now seems likely SA entered a technical recession in the second quarter, FNB senior economic analyst Jason Muscat said. Moody’s, meanwhile, cautioned that the government’s current economic growth forecasts were overly optimistic, as were its plans for fiscal consolidation. Global market focus was on events in Turkey, after that country decided to up the ante in its dispute with the US by leveling additional tariffs on US goods. Metals were sharply sold off, with the spike in risk coming even as markets begin digesting the economic effects of the trade war in China, analysts said. Recent Chinese data has also disappointed, with growing fears that its economy is slowing despite stimulus efforts, reported Dow Jones Newswires. Diversified miner Anglo American slumped 6.02% to R280.48, BHP 3.71% to R297.97 and Glencore 3.27% to R55.37. Kumba Iron Ore plummeted 9.67% to R263.31. Gold Fields crashed 10.85% to R37.30, having announced on Tuesday it was planning job cuts at its loss-making South Deep mine. Rand hedge AB InBev gained 2.82% to R1,427.14. FirstRand fell 4.75% to R62.20. Source: Business live

South African money manager Sygnia [JSE:SYG] closed all its hedge-fund products, ending a 13-year history with an investment strategy its chief executive officer now calls a ruse to pocket fees. “Once you know that the emperor has no clothes you cannot in good conscience support what has become a management-fee racket,” Chief Executive Officer Magda Wierzycka wrote in an opinion piece in Johannesburg-based daily newspaper, Business Day. While investors ignored the fees managers were charging during bull markets, this has changed with the onset of regulations that forced hedge funds to convert into mutual funds and adopt more transparent fee structures, Wierzycka argued. The end of quantitative easing and cheap money flowing into emerging markets has also brought a period of outflows and negative, volatile market returns, she said. “This should be the ideal time for hedge funds to show they can finally deliver on the promise of preserving capital,” the CEO said. “The sad truth seems to be that they cannot.” The Cape Town-based money manager, which has R181bn in assets, has now fired all its hedge fund managers and “hopefully closed a chapter on this form of investing”, she said, without saying how many staff or funds were affected, or commenting on the actual returns made by Sygnia’s hedge funds. “After long advocating the use of hedge funds as a way of managing the downside risk of an investment strategy, I have swung 180 degrees in the other direction,” Wierzycka said. Source: Fin24