124 000 More Consumers Fall Behind on Credit Payments
NCR Credit Reports Released
The NCR have released new stats in their quarterly Consumer Credit Market Report and the Credit Bureau Monitor. This is information the NCR compile based on info submitted to them by registrants – Credit Providers – and the various (13) Credit Bureaus . The latest information covers the 3 months leading to June 2015.
More People Asking for Credit
The latest figures reveal that credit providers have received even more applications for credit than normal. In fact, their were another 1,743,000 applications during this time. it seems that the majority of people asking for credit are based in Gauteng. During the last few months credit providers have turned down 6 800 000 applications from different consumers across the country. That’s a lot of disappointment.
Houses Costing More?
Since the figures that people are borrowing toward bonds is up by an extra 9.37% compared to last year this seems to indicate either that consumers are shopping for slightly more fancy places than before or that the selling price of property is rising. The majority fo people being granted bonds are earning over R15 000 a month and most are borrowing over R700 000, at least.
Car Sales Stable
Since the beginning of the economic downturn vehicle sales immediately fell of and many vehicle sales people had to turn to debt review in an effort to deal with lower income based on sales commission. It is not only VW that is still experiencing hard times in the vehicle market as the latest CCM Report shows that lending for vehicles recently dropped a bit during the last few months even though the overall figure is slightly up by almost 2% from this time last year
Creditors Abandon Unsecured Lending
For the longest time in recent history the area of short term unsecured loans was the cash cow which all credit providers were chasing. When payments on debt dropped off due to increased economic pressure it saw institutions like African Bank fall to it’s knees and many retail furniture stores going under. As credit providers risk appetite in this area (unsecured lending) has diminished so to has the inability of consumers to actually afford the loans they were asking for. Unsecured lending is down by almost 10% compared to last year despite more applications than ever.
Some Consumers Get Back On Their Feet
More and more consumers are entering the debt review process and taking similar steps to reduce their spending and focus on repaying their debts. In the last few months over 139 000 consumers caught up with their promised payments on their debt and got themselves into a good standing at the credit bureaus.
Some Consumers Loose Their Footing
While that may seem to indicate that SA consumers are getting a handle on their debt the reality is at the same time over 124 000 other consumers fell into serious arrears of 3 months or more and now face legal action from their creditors.
Download The Reports
Overall their has been an increase in the amount of credit granted recently though many consumers were turned down when they applied. In total Credit providers handed out another whopping R4.68 Billion Rand to consumers during these months. This means that more consumers are in debt than before and/or owe more than before. While it is good news that some consumers have managed to get on top of their debt situation many, many more have lost the plot entirely and are now in serious need of professional help (like debt review) to try remedy the situation or face serious legal action from their creditors. You can download the reports and have a look at all the interesting figures here:
