Mashonisas

Many Debt Counsellors find that their clients, once they could no longer get credit from the normal credit providers (such as the banks), have turned to mashonisas for loans. Mashonisas are unregistered – therefore illegal – loan sharks who first appeared during the apartheid era, when most South Africans did not have access to credit. Despite their sometimes violent means of collection, their services are still popular and are growing once again as regular credit providers turn certain consumers away, knowing they can’t truly afford credit.

In Zulu “Mashonisas” translates to “one who buries you under”. Sounds pretty scarey.
Some of these illegal loan sharks confiscate peoples ATM cards and only return them once they have taken their repayment from consumers accounts at the end of the month. Other less fortunate consumers who have struggled to repay their mashonisas have lost their furniture or even been beaten.