It has been a challenging year, indeed a challenging decade and from my point of view a challenging three decades, crossing all kinds of watersheds as we went, both locally and abroad.

It is already a year ago that I retired as chief economist of the bank, and Sizwe took over. Since then I have been a contented contract worker, still steadily writing away although for many of you it may have been difficult to locate me since the middle of the year as we moved websites.

The new FNB economics website is now fully operational, and it happens to coincide with the ending of my one year contract.

From next week, I will be on my own again after 28 years in the bank, very much doing what I have always been doing, that is reading widely, writing furiously, giving presentations, offering economic analysis and opinion where asked and talking to people in all walks of life.

You will be able to find me on www.bruggemans.co.za for those of you who would like to continue reading me. Over to you!