The rand has performed better than you think

I've had a lot of discussions on the rand lately. Most of them centre around taking as much out of the country as possible.

- Matthew Matthee

Looking at the dollar to rand exchange rate, in 2000, the rand was R6.5 to the dollar. At the time of writing, it sits at R17.5.

• Over the past 23 years, the rand has depreciated on average by 4.75% per year.

• If you had taken R100 offshore in 2000 and converted it into dollars, it would be worth R285 today, providing a 285% return.

Intuitively, it seems like a no-brainer to move money offshore. The rand weakens over time, so by transferring money abroad, you benefit from the weakening currency and increase the value of your rand holdings.

However, this is based on the idea of buying foreign currency (in this case, dollars) and doing nothing else. In other words, buying dollars and storing it under your mattress.

But this is not realistic. People store their money in a bank account that generates interest.