of the forecast and minimise errors. the suite of models approach can be useful to obtain different forecasts for the same variable which can then be pooled together to obtain the final forecast. models differ in their focus and consequently in their characteristics and transmission mechanisms. different outcomes are useful in gaining new perspectives on what is driving particular outcomes. there are of course limits to this approach. too many different model properties make the assessment of the transmission mechanisms ambiguous and complicates the interpretation of the results. the success of any modelling and forecasting endeavour should be measured not by the sophistication or complexity of the techniques used or the accuracy of the data employed, but rather the degree of forecast error minimisation and the quality of the analysis that it supports. more and better information is critical to model building, forecasting and analysis. and here, the reuters survey provides a valuable service to the modelling activities of the reserve bank, and of course other forecasters. it is useful to compare forecasts to shed light on how other participants view the future and how they quantify the most important transmission channels of the economy. the analysis of surveys over time, moreover, tells us something about the nature of shocks hitting the economy, how the economy adjusts to the shocks, and the extent of policy reaction expected by the markets. for example, time series models help us forecast high frequency data for a horizon up to 2 quarters. however by definition, these models rely solely on past data patterns and are unable to predict turning points. structural models are better suited to forecasting over longer horizons. bis central bankers ’ speeches in our recent discussions of the economy, considerable attention was devoted to understanding the combination of inflation, growth, and monetary policy reaction functions exhibited in private sector forecasts. greater uncertainty in the global economic environment and newer data from international and domestic sources made it critically important to gather more views of conditions in the world and understand how they were being interpreted by the markets. a levelling - off of commodity prices and weaker economic growth in many economies presented significant differences from how we understood the world even two months ago. there have been other changes too, including on the domestic front, such as signs of weaker second quarter growth rates. our task is to try to peer through these various changes, in part to ask ourselves hard questions about our forecasts and test them against potential scenarios. scenarios, in turn, imply probabilities of events actually transpiring, and here our analysis has had to

rashad cassim : south african reserve bank's payments study report launch speaking notes by mr rashad cassim, deputy governor of the south african reserve bank, at the south african reserve bank's payments study report launch, sandton, johannesburg, 5 september 2024. * * * good afternoon, all. thank you for joining us today as we launch the south african reserve bank's ( sarb ) inaugural payments study report. this study is one of our initiatives to better understand the payment system landscape in south africa. it supports our current strategy, vision 2025, which identified a need for the sarb to collect more payments information. in pursuing that goal, we knew we already had extensive information about the supply side of payments. we get this from operating samos, 1 the core interbank payment, real - time gross settlement system. we also receive data from other payment service providers. the payments study report we are launching today, by contrast, is about the demand side of the payment system – the users thereof and their choice of payment methods, including their preferences, level of awareness, usage, reasons for adoption and barriers to entry. the study has two parts. one is a survey of about 45 minutes that just over 3 000 people completed. we call this the survey of consumer payment choice ( scpc ). in the second part of the study, about 4 600 respondents tracked their payment behaviour and payment method usage over a three - month period, using actual payments in a set period of days. this we call the diary of consumer payment choice ( dcpc ). here people documented, among other things, their preferred payment methods, the amounts paid and what the payments were for. the two surveys were conducted nationwide between april and december last year. they were designed to complement each other. indeed, this two - survey approach has also been adopted by other central banks, for instance in australia, poland, sweden and the united states ( us ). 2 and the results make for interesting reading. i do not want to steal the thunder of our next presenter, who will be walking us through the high - level results, but i was struck by several points. for instance, even though the usage of cash is not growing any more, it remains the most popular payment method. debit card usage is second and credit cards a distant third. 1 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches furthermore, while credit cards are mostly used by richer households, which you would expect, there