Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management (ETDs)

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    Competition, Systemic Risk and Financial Inclusion: Assessing the Adequacy of South Africa’s Merger Control Framework for Navigating Policy Frictions Arising in the FinTech Industry
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Stathoulis, Maria Olga
    An adequacy assessment is conducted through outlining a proposed FinTech competition policy that serves as a yardstick in relation to which the merger control framework is evaluated. The adequacy assessment is informed by whether the merger control framework, in theory, facilitates the implementation of the proposed policy principles that are calculated to aid competition authorities to balance competition, systemic risk, and data protection concerns in a manner that optimises financial inclusion. This research report proposes that the balancing exercise built into the merger control framework, the substantial public-interest grounds that factor in industry-specific policies, and the socio-economic framework within which the public-interest provisions should be considered, will enable the competition authorities to navigate policy frictions arising in the FinTech industry. However, the Minister of Finance’s power to exclude bank mergers from the purview of the merger control framework and the Prudential Authority’s stability-orientated primary objectives, have the potential to undermine competition in the banking sector. Competence and resource constraints aside, regulatory authorities can only be as effective as their mandate is appropriate. To create an appropriate regulatory architecture and optimal jurisdiction allocation, reform permutations that redefine the relationship between the Banks Act 94 of 1990 and the Competition Act 89 of 1998 are suggested. Merger control is as much of a transaction-specific analysis as it is context specific. Therefore, a FinTech-traditional financial market inquiry is recommended to enable the competition authorities and, more broadly, the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group members, to understand the current state, and trajectory, of the FinTech industry
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    Factors influencing the behavioural intention to adopt mobile money transfer services in South Africa
    (University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Mothoagae, Vuyokazi; Tjedza , Ndlovu
    South Africa is a country that faces many socio-economic challenges including unemployment, poverty and inequality and could benefit substantially to enhancements of financial inclusion to close the economic gap. Despite the country having a highly developed financial infrastructure and well-regulated financial sector, and achievements of growing financial inclusion levels, the country still experiences a significant number of adults who are financially excluded. This study focused on the factors influencing the intention to adopt mobile money transfer services in South Africa which could be used as a financial inclusion strategy. According to the UTAUT and TAM frameworks utilised in the study, the leading factors that influence the behavioural intention to adopt mobile money transfer services included, attitude, utilitarian performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, hedonic performance expectancy, self- efficacy, trust, perceived risk, perceived security and facilitating conditions. The key findings revealed that attitude, hedonic performance expectancy, social influence, risk, security and facilitating conditions had a significant influence on behavioural intention to adopt mobile money transfer services in South Africa. However, utilitarian performance expectancy, effort expectancy, self-efficacy and trust, were found to have insignificant influence on the behavioural intention to adopt mobile money transfer services in South Africa.
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    Performance evaluation of FinTech applications in emerging market economies: a case of TelPay
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Mvelase, Sibusiso Kenneth; Godspower-Akpomiemie, Euphemia
    The financial industry is at the receiving end of the anxiety that comes with the influx of FinTech, especially in the emerging market economies. This is because FinTech is globally restructuring the perception of people and businesses towards financial services product and services. There are so many benefits attached to FinTech (including ability and efficiency in addressing transaction cost and information asymmetry while providing financial services) that have escalated its global acceptance and usage. Despite the identified benefits of FinTech most academic and policy research focus more on FinTech disruption of the financial institutions, rather than the performance of the FinTech start-ups. Though the research on FinTech disruption requires attention, it is also vital to assess the efficiency of the FinTech companies already in operation, especially in Africa where technological infrastructure could be on a minimal supply. Therefore this study assesses the performance of FinTech, focusing on TelPay, a FinTech start-up that is spreading fast within the African markets, with the intension of getting into other emerging market economies. TelPay users (15) and developers (2) were interviewed, analyzed through content analysis using word could. The word cloud clearly show following characteristics of TelPay; affordability ease of usage, good performance, flexibility, fast, loan, credit, etc. This result posits that people were attracted to TelPay due to its affordability, along the line, they found that the app is unique, the process is easy and flexible, and the functionality is efficient and precise. The result also shows that TelPay has been an enabler of financial inclusion in the three countries of its current operation. According to the respondents, TelPay has created a door-way to financial inclusion in their countries, by creating inclusiveness to the lowincome earners, through access to credit. The study also concluded that TelPay will definitely survive in Africa, especially if it maintains and/or improves on the quality of the services it currently offers.