CEEMEA Strategy Notes: South Africa: foreign inflows continued in May

Research evidence excerpt

CEEMEA Strategy Notes: South Africa: foreign inflows continued in May

Deutsche Bank

Research

Sub-Saharan Africa Emerging Markets Date

South Africa 12 June 2026

CEEMEA Strategy

Notes

South Africa: foreign inflows continued

in May

Anna Friedemann

n Key takeaways: South African local bonds saw further albeit modest

Research Analyst

inflows last month following a resumption in inflows in April after record

+44-20-754-11816

outflows in March. Foreigners increased their holdings in local bonds by

ZAR 10bn (USD 590mn using current FX) in May to now ZAR 1,086bn (USD Christian Wietoska

67bn) - (Figure 1). On a YTD basis, inflows remain the lowest since 2020 as Strategist

the large ZAR 65bn in outflows in March more than erased the strong +44-20-754-52424

inflows at the start of the year. In relative terms, the share of foreign

Naman Mishra

holdings in all bonds (incl. linkers and floaters) was narrowly up by 0.1pp

Research Associate

MoM to now 24.9%, leaving the share still close to the lowest level on record

of 24.2% (reached in Nov-24).

Ankit Jain

n Ownership structure: The inflows were driven by investor interest in Research Associate

SAGBs with foreign exposure remaining concentrated in nominal bonds

(~98%). Nominal bonds saw ZAR 10bn of inflows in May reflecting softer

demand compared to the 23bn inflows in April. The share of foreign

holdings was also only narrowly up by +0.1pp to now 31.1% (Figure 3).

Foreigners are still the largest investor group but saw their share decrease

the most over the last three months (Figure 9). Other financial institutions

and local banks continue to catch up, holding 24% and 20% of nominal

bonds respectively, with other financial institutions seeing the largest

increase in their share over the last three months (Figure 10).