Introduction: The Growth of the Financial Sector 1950–88

Abstract

The South African economy in the second half of the twentieth century has been characterised by vigorous enterprise in the financial sector, enterprise that has transformed what was a relatively sleepy colonial sector in 1950 into a modern sophisticated multi-faceted financial sector in 1990. The pace of innovation began to accelerate in the late 1950s with the emergence of the first merchant bank, Union Acceptances, and the first discount house, The Discount House of South Africa. In this same decade, too, the growth of the Afrikaaner-owned banks began to accelerate and the Sangers made their move into financing the motor trade. At the same time a period of rapid economic growth off the gold standard increased the relative importance of monetary policy and allowed a considerable broadening of the base of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in the decades that followed.