In the recent Global Competitiveness Report, the areas in which South Africa fared well are those that are underpinned by strong institutions and governance such as the strength of auditing standards, the protection of minority shareholder interests, the efficacy of corporate boards and the efficiency of the legal framework and judicial independence. The soundness of banks is also highly ranked.
Similarly, the expanding automated access to data cannot just be addressed within the confines of the financial sector. Increasingly, non-financial data, like for instance the data your car produced on your way to this conference, are key to innovation in the financial sector. Developing a framework for data access must therefore be done at the horizontal level.