South African consumer confidence fell sharply in the second quarter as households confronted a sharp rise in fuel prices caused by fallout from the Iran war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First National Bank\u2019s consumer-confidence index compiled by the Bureau for Economic Research slumped to -19 in the three months through June from -7 in the previous quarter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was the lowest reading since the first quarter of 2025, when confusion over a proposed increase in value-added taxes delayed adoption of the nation\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rise in fuel prices as the conflict constrained energy supplies added an estimated R45 billion in costs to the South African economy, FNB said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe household budgets of affluent consumers have been hard hit by the massive petrol and diesel price increases during the second quarter,\u201d FNB Chief Economist Mamello Matikinca-Ngwenya said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matikinca-Ngwenya added that an interest-rate increase by the central bank to curb inflation could also dampen sentiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The South African Reserve Bank raised borrowing costs by 25 basis points to 7% last month in anticipation of higher inflation, which has since risen to 4.5% in May compared with 3.1% in March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bank has a 3% inflation target with a tolerance band of one percentage point on either side. It has repeatedly vowed to defend the goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South African consumer confidence fell sharply in the second quarter as households confronted a sharp rise in fuel prices caused by fallout from the Iran war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":855633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[4191,3994],"class_list":["post-864365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-consumer-confidence","tag-petrol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":864366,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864365\/revisions\/864366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}