Insights into South Africa's national financial account for 2023

The national financial account records transactions involving financial assets and liabilities among resident institutional units and between these units and the rest of the world. By extension, the flow of funds measures financial statistics where both parties to a transaction are shown, as well as the nature of the financial instrument being transacted.

Resident institutional units in South Africa’s flow-of-funds matrix are allocated to one of four main institutional sectors: financial intermediaries, general government, non-financial public and private business enterprises, and households.

This note provides insights into factors that influenced the flow of funds in South Africa in 2023. Many institutional sectors continue to face domestic constraints such as electricity load-shedding, port and rail inefficiencies, deteriorating public finances, and weak consumer demand characterized by elevated inflation and high interest rates. This occurred against a global economic backdrop of tighter monetary policy, rising geopolitical tensions, and a prolonged slump in the property market which weighed on sentiment and dampened aggregate demand.

The analysis of financial flows in this note is based on annual 2023 statistics as published on pages S–50 and S–51 in this edition of the Quarterly Bulletin (QB), while the quarterly national financial account statistical tables for 2023 are appended to this note.