Many card issuers offer the budget facility as a vehicle for card holders to consolidate their existing debt and — in return — they offer customers an incentive in the pricing, in the form of preferential interest rates.
The rising popularity of debit cards complements the traditional credit card market.
Credit card initiatives and product innovations — many related to pricing — are about to be spawned in the marketplace as a direct result of the challenges the National Credit Act (NCA) originally posed to the banking fraternity.
The South African credit card industry is bracing itself for a new round of innovation and competition.
The provision in the National Credit Act to assist overindebted people to restructure their debt through debt counselling was not designed as a punitive measure — nor as a measure to enable debt-stressed people to borrow more money to pay off debt.
The commercial and wholesale banking arena differs from conventional retail banking, given the complexity and sophistication of business banking products and offerings in this highly specialised market segment. Oscar Grobler, of Absa Corporate Business Bank, says banks have struggled to define how they should segment their business banking offering.
Responding effectively to the HIV/Aids and tuberculosis epidemics is a challenge for companies such as gold producer AngloGold Ashanti for business and moral reasons. The burden of both diseases in the local mining industry is high. Similarly, the high incidence of malaria in the company’s Africa operations calls for effective interventions.
Providing palliative care for patients who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness calls for special levels of devotion and compassion — qualities offered by Ladybrand Hospice in the Free State. The hospice provides relief from suffering and distress when illness has reached the stage where continued medical treatment can no longer provide a cure. Patients are assigned a home-based carer.
A multifaceted international partnership programme to combat the growing multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) pandemic is well underway, with a five-year project strategy until the end of 2011 also being developed within South Africa. In 2003, global pharmaceutical giant Lilly launched the Lilly Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis Partnership project.
In a world of escalating bad news about crime, poverty, violence and ill health, one project has generated good news, provided hope and turned the tide — the Cipla Medpro Miles for Smiles Foundation. The foundation challenged two extreme athletes to participate in a radical event of their choice to capture the attention of all South Africans.
