Today, 31 October 2011, is World Savings Day.  The World Savings Banks Institute (WSBI) has an interesting website on the day, setting out its history (it was started in 1924 as World Thrift Day), and outlining past events associated with the day.  I learned about this from a LinkedIn post, announcing a new technical guide published by CGAP, entitled “Advancing Savings Services: Resource Guide for Funders“.  The CGAP post introducing the report is worth reading.  It notes the credit bias in our assessment of finance systems, and argues for savings mobilisation to sit at the heart of any financial access strategy….

Two weeks ago, I participated in the public hearings into housing finance, convened by the Financial and Fiscal Commission in South Africa.  As background: the FFC is “an independent, objective, impartial and unbiased constitutional advisory institution… [with] the responsibility to advise and make recommendations to Parliament, provincial legislatures, organised local government and other organs of State of financial and fiscal matters” in South Africa.  The primary role of the FFC is “to ensure the creation and maintenance of an effective, equitable and sustainable system of intergovernmental fiscal relations in South Africa”. This is the first time the FFC has entered…

Last week, the Bank of Namibia hosted their 13th Annual Symposium, focusing this time on Housing in Namibia.  The symposium started with three presentations, which together provided (1) an analysis of the Namibian Housing Market presented by Mr Ebson Uanguta, Director of Research at the Bank of Namibia; (2) an analysis of experiences in Japan, the United States and China by Professor Aloysius Mosha, Head of Urban Planning at the University of Botswana; and (3) an analysis of the South African housing experience by Dr Mark Napier, director of Urban LandMark.  I was invited to give a paper as the…

This week’s theme for Eighty20‘s Fact a Day has been housing finance in SA.  Drawing on data from the 2010 General Household Survey and the National Credit Regulator’s Consumer Credit Market report, they wrote on Monday: “there are 14.3 million households in SA.  As at end March 2011 there were 1.8 million mortgage accounts, amounting to R770 billion (64% of all consumer credit).” I’m interested in what is inside those numbers: who are the 1.8 million mortgage account holders, and where do they sit on our income pyramid?   Last week, property24.com reported that both Absa and FNB are planning to retrench staff…

The first phase of the Financial Sector Charter took place between January 2004 and December 2008.  During that time (according to Banking Association unaudited data), the financial sector originated a total of R44,8 billion in mortgage, fully guaranteed, unsecured, residential development, and wholesale & social housing loans to FSC target market households.  By far the greatest area of activity was in mortgage lending: 234 638 mortgage loans to a total value of 28 billion were originated in the five year period.  In the aftermath of the FSC, and in considering the long term implications of such targeted lending, the performance…