The National Credit Act (NCA) and Debt Review
Standard Bank South Africa (SBSA) is a registered credit provider and fully supports the NCA (National Credit Act). We have put in place control measures to comply with the requirements of the NCA.
The information that follows will assist in explaining how this legislation affects you.
Does the NCA apply to you?
The NCA applies to:
- All credit agreements between parties dealing at arm’s length (where there is no personal interest between the parties), and
- All natural persons or individuals (personal customers, sole proprietors, trusts with two or less trustees that are natural persons) and certain juristic persons (partnerships, close corporations, companies, trusts with three or more trustees or when one trustee is a juristic person).
The NCA does not apply to:
- Juristic persons with an asset value or annual turnover of more than R1 million, and
- Juristic persons with an asset value or annual turnover of less than R1 million who enter into any size mortgage agreement or a credit transaction (for example a personal loan or vehicle finance) or credit guarantee (for example a suretyship) with a loan value of more than R250 000.
These are known as large credit agreements and exclude any credit facilities (for example credit cards and overdrafts).
How does the NCA affect you?
The NCA provides you with certain rights and protection.
What rights to you have?
- The right to apply for credit
- The right to be protected against discrimination in respect of the granting of credit.
- The right to be given reasons for credit being refused.
- The right to information in an official language.
- The right to information in plain and understandable language.
- The right to receive documents.
- The right to protection of customer credit rights.
- The right to confidential treatment.
- The right to access and challenge credit records and information.
- The right to pay any amount owed to us in advance without a notice or penalty. Note that early termination charges do apply when a large agreement is settled early. Three months’ notice must be given to a credit provider before a large agreement is settled; otherwise a termination charge of the amount of three months’ interest charges minus the period of the settlement notice given will be charged.
General:
- When entering into a new credit agreement with you, we will need to obtain your consent to send you marketing.
- We will not offer you pre-approved credit facilities.
- We will give you notice before submitting negative information about you to credit bureaux.
- If you are married in community of property, you must obtain the written consent of your spouse before you apply for a loan.
- Interest rates, fees and charges will not change, except in accordance with your original credit agreement. If these change, we will notify you.
- If you do not meet the obligations of your agreement, you will be considered to be in default.
- Once we have notified you of your default you have the following options available:
- You may make arrangements with us to bring your payments up to date.
- You may consult an independent debt counsellor.
- You may contact an alternative dispute resolution agent, consumer court or the Ombudsman for Banking Services to resolve any dispute under the agreement or develop and agree a plan to bring your payments up to date.
- You will become liable for default administration costs and if legal action is taken against you, collection costs will be charged to you as well.
- If you have a credit facility (for example an overdraft or credit card), we may also suspend this facility without notice to you or withdraw all or part of your credit facility by giving notice to you.
How does the NCA protect you against over indebtedness?
The NCA requires that we perform a full credit assessment before entering into a credit agreement with you. The regulations contain credit assessment criteria that we comply with. We must check if you have the financial means to pay the proposed credit instalments and verify the information that you provide for the assessment.
You must give us accurate and truthful information and documents. To make sure that we protect you against over indebtedness we, in addition to our normal credit assessment, now perform an assessment of repayment ability for each loan application.
We will also check that you understand the rights, obligations, risks and costs associated with your credit agreement.
We will give you a comprehensive pre-agreement statement and quotation that shows all the costs involved. This includes a credit cost multiple, the total cost of credit over the term of the agreement, the risks associated with the loan, and your rights and obligations. The quote is valid for a minimum of five business days during which you will be given an opportunity to consider the credit being approved and if you want to take up the loan.
What should you do if you feel that you may be over indebted?
You may be over indebted if - after deducting reasonable living expenses from your total income - you are or will soon be unable to repay your debts. If you believe you are over indebted you should contact us and we will assess your situation to see if we can assist you or we will suggest that you approach a debt counsellor to apply for debt review.
Standard Bank Debt Review
Debt Review is a statutory relief process provided for by the National Credit Act 34 of 2005 and the National Credit Amendment Act 19 of 2014. The National Credit Act offers debt relief to over-indebted consumers through the debt review process. The Standard Bank Debt Review department handles all debt review applications that have been received from debt counsellors on behalf of financially distressed consumers. Debt Review provides relief in the form of negotiating repayment arrangement terms on credit agreements in respect of a consumer’s debt obligations. These arrangements may include a change to the instalment, term and interest rate.
Note that Standard Bank has other debt relief measures available to assist consumers in financial distress, click here for more information.
For more information on debt review, kindly refer to the National Credit Regulator’s website for more information on finding a debt counsellor https://www.ncr.org.za/
| Debt review helpline |
0861 111 525 |
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Debt Review Documents*: |
[email protected] | |
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Debt Review Service requests: |
5 days | |
| Debt Review payment queries: |
7 days |
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Debt Review administrative requests** |
5 days |
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Debt Review complaints and escalations: |
5 days |
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Reckless Lending Allegations |
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Debit order cancellation requests |
5 days |
How do you resolve a complaint?
Your first point of contact in resolving a complaint should always be your home branch or alternatively our Customer Relations Centre. If the complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction then you may contact the Ombudsman for Banking Services or the National Credit Regulator.
Complaint contact information
| Customer Relations Centre |
Head: Customer Relations |
| The Banking Ombudsman |
The Banking Ombudsman |
| The National Credit Regulator |
127 - 15th Road |
Credit Bureaux contact information
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TransUnion Credit Bureau (Pty) Ltd |
Wanderers Office Park |
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Experian South Africa (Pty) Ltd |
Experian House |
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Compuscan Information Technologies (Pty) Ltd |
Compuscan House |
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XDS(Xpert Decision System) |
7 St David’s Office Park |