It is said that for reasons of economic management it is of importance to be able to judge a country's trading position in relation to the rest of the world. The way in which this is done is by setting out a country's transactions with other countries in an account called the Balance of Payments. Such an account normally consists of two distinct parts. The first part is called the current account (in it is recorded the monetary value received from sales and the monetary value paid for purchases). It is important to note that only monetary transaction values are recorded. So the current sales and purchase values to and from the rest of the world is recorded.
The second part of the BOP is called the capital account. In this part of the account investment or capital transactions are recorded as well as borrowing and lending. These accounts are recorded by the SA Reserve Bank.