Slide 7 presents a picture of households’ routine expenditures, the largest segment of which is, understandably, food. The proportion of income spent on food clearly goes down as income goes up, but at the aggregate level, the proportion is significant. But, this is not an issue I want to dwell on here.
The South African Reserve Bank is responsible for bank regulation and supervision which is based entirely on the recommendations of the Basel Committee. Regulation and supervision concentrates on the management of risk exposures within each banking institution.