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Traditional kinship relations denied African women access to property and cash income. As they moved out of the traditional sector to urban centers, women created opportunities for independent earnings, and they displayed remarkable entrepreneurial spirit in undertaking informal economic activities. One of their tactics was the utilization of a type of rotating credit and savings organization (ROSCA), the stokvel, to mobilize savings outside the formal financial structure. This article brings together scattered research on stokvels, traces their past and present uses by African women, and concludes with an exploration of the reasons for the persistence of these forms despite the development of sophisticated financial structures in modern South Africa.

Accountants in South Africa established professional organizations to protect and promote the profession in the rapidly growing business environment after the discovery of diamonds and gold in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This article investigates the development of the statutory regulatory environment of the accounting profession, which gradually emerged alongside the profession's own structures. The growth of the South African economy created a rising demand for professional accountants, and large numbers of accountants from Britain emigrated to South Africa (or to the former colonies under British control, which later formed the Union of South Africa in 1910). Professional regulation remained a professional concern until the 1951 Act which established the Public Accountants and Auditors Board. The article extends the existing literature on the state-profession nexus by explaining the circumstances leading to proactive intervention of the state and the intersection of the state's public interest responsibility and the closure attempts of the profession.

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The banking industries of New Zealand and South Africa were among the most tightly regulated in the western world in the early 1980s. Restrictions on foreign banks were particularly acute, especially in South Africa. From a position of considerable isolation, first New Zealand then South Africa implemented programmes of financial liberalisation. We show that the outcome of liberalisation was different in these two countries. South African banks were able to establish a strong presence in external markets, but the New Zealand banking system was mopped up by its Australian neighbour. These divergent outcomes reflect the origins, geographical position, and unequal capabilities of the New Zealand and South African banking industries.banking, internationalisation, South Africa, New Zealand, regulation, deregulation,