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The biodiversity of our planet is under threat, with approximately one million species expected to become extinct within decades. The reason: negative human actions, which include hunting, overfishing, pollution, and the conversion of land for urbanisation and agricultural purposes. Despite significant investment from charities and governments for activities that benefit nature, global wildlife populations continue to decline. Local wildlife guardians have historically played a critical role in global conservation efforts and have shown their ability to achieve sustainability at various levels. In 2021, COP26 recognised their contributions and pledged USD 1.7 billion per year; however this is a fraction of the global biodiversity budget available (between USD 124 billion and USD 143 billion annually) given they protect 80% of the planets biodiversity. This paper proposes a radical new solution based on "Interspecies Money", where animals own their own money. Creating a digital twin for each species allows animals to dispense funds to their guardians for the services they provide. For example, a rhinoceros may release a payment to its guardian each time it is detected in a camera trap as long as it remains alive and well. To test the efficacy of this approach, 27 camera traps were deployed over a 400 km 2 area in Welgevonden Game Reserve in Limpopo Province in South Africa. The motion-triggered camera traps were operational for ten months and, using deep learning, we managed to capture images of 12 distinct animal species. For each species, a makeshift bank account was set up and credited with GBP 100. Each time an animal was captured in a camera and successfully classified, 1 penny (an arbitrary amount—mechanisms still need to be developed to determine the real value of species) was transferred from the animal account to its associated guardian. The trial demonstrated that it is possible to achieve high animal detection accuracy across the 12 species with a sensitivity of 96.38%, specificity of 99.62%, precision of 87.14%, F1 score of 90.33%, and an accuracy of 99.31%. The successful detections facilitated the transfer of GBP 185.20 between animals and their associated guardians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on stokvels in contemporary South Africa. It examines the resilience and persistence of mutual aid in a modern setting. It seeks to build a qualitative model to understand the persistence and adaptation of the stokvels in a modern society where banking institutions coexist with informal credit practices. The concept of cooperation is key to the analysis. We argue that stokvels continue to persist in modern society, despite the rise of banking institutions, because of their cooperative nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent financial crisis has generated interests in how business cycle affect bank lending to SMEs. However, the effect of the business cycle on lending to SMEs in South Africa after the global financial crisis of 2008 has not been extensively explored. We examine this relationship and its effect in South Africa using Vector Autoregressive modeling. This paper employs monthly data from South Africa Reserve Bank (SARB) for the period 2008 to 2014. We adopt the regulatorydriven capital crunch hypothesis employing monthly data from South African Reserve Bank (SARB). Most of the variables display a very sensitive reaction to the coincident index and capital adequacy shock. The results show strong evidence of procyclicality in SME lending in South Africa. The result shows that business cycle has a positive and significant long-run impact on SME. However, the adjustment coefficient of the business cycle is also positive and significant in the short run. Any case of asset price misalignment or excessive growth boom may ultimately amplify the business cycle. The impulse response test shows the response of bank lending to SMEs to one standard deviation shock of the business cycle is negative and persistent for over 15 quarters before steadying. This result vividly indicates some strong evidence of credit procyclicality between the business cycle and SME in South Africa. Our results have interesting implications for credit availability to SMEs. Our results have several implications. Firstly, these may lead to many banks decreasing lending in bad times when they encounter loan losses and their capitalization drops. This may affect the real economy, as SMEs, which need to finance their small enterprises, may be cut off from credit. There is also a need to promote diversification of financing options for small firms and SMEs by providing various credit supporting policies in South Africa. There is, therefore, an urgent need to boost support to SMEs credit, especially during recessionary periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the 2007 sub-prime financial crisis, global measures under the Basel Accord framework were taken to guarantee the preservation of adequate capital for the stability of the banking industry and to prevent another banking crisis. As a result, world bank capital ratios have increased. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of increased bank capital requirements in general and in particular those introduced under Basel II on the cost of intermediation in South Africa. Empirical evidence on the nexus between capital requirements and intermediation costs has significant implications on the lending market and therefore on the growth prospects of a country. Furthermore, higher intermediation costs undermines efforts towards financial inclusion particularly in South Africa where broader access to bank services for all remains a critical factor for redressing the challenges of high income inequalities. Utilizing annual bank-level data obtained from Bankscope for the period 2001 – 2012, the fixed effects estimation technique is applied on a balanced panel of ten banks constituting inter alia the four largest South African banks. For robustness, two alternative cost of intermediation variables are chosen, NIM1 which is net interest revenue to interest earning assets ratio while NIM2 is net interest revenue to average total assets ratio. Two proxy measures of capital requirements are employed namely the equity-to-total-assets ratio and a Basel II dummy variable to take the value one in 2008 and subsequent periods and zero otherwise. In addition to these variables, a number of bank-specific and macroeconomic variables that are hypothesized to influence the basic functions of banks are incorporated into the model. The results from estimating the fixed effects model show that a one percent increase in capital requirements lead on average to a range of 12 – 14 basis points increase in the cost of intermediation during the period of analysis. Empirical evidence from the study also indicate that the Basel II capital requirements effected in January 2008 contributed to increased cost of intermediation by an average 7 basis points for the period 2008 – 2012. We conclude that high capital requirements are associated with increased costs of intermediation. We therefore caution that while maintaining adequate capital levels is crucial for obvious reasons, there is need for supervisory authorities to ensure that such regulation is effective and well-balanced to guarantee safety and stability of the sector without endangering the ability of the banks to service the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, the World Bank released Working Paper No. 7788, "Financial Viability of Electricity Sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa: Quasi-Fiscal Deficits and Hidden Costs". The paper concluded that virtually all Sub-Saharan electricity utilities were overstaffed and that Eskom in South Africa had the highest levels of overstaffing. This analysis reveals apparent problems in the Bank's overstaffing study and highlights the impact of the study on staffing decisions and electricity tariffs in South Africa due to perceptions of staffing inefficiency in Eskom's operations. The potential policy implications for utilities in developing countries are discussed. • The World Bank Working Paper 7788 is reviewed in terms of its findings of overstaffing with respect to Eskom in South Africa. • The errors in data and method are highlighted and their policy impact on staffing and tariffs identified. • The potential negative impact on utilities in developing countries are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]