Registrations Department

AS per the NCA the NCR is mandated to register and regulate credit providers, credit bureaux and debt counsellors and to enforce compliance. It also has the responsibility to promote a responsible and accessible credit market and to protect consumers from abusive and unfair practices Since inception the NCR has been able to register the above entities:

• A total of 4168 credit providers (3690 in 2009) with 33706 branches;
• 1642 debt counsellors (834 in 2009) and
• 10 credit bureaux

Complaints handling and resolution Department

During the year April 2009-March 2010, 3 497 formal complaints were logged of which:

• 3 093 were resolved – giving a resolution rate of 88,45%;
• 30,74% were resolved within 30 days,
• 51% within 60 days;
• 14.53% within 90 days and
• 18,67% resolved outside of 90 days.

• R488 882 being refunded to consumers (Since Inception: R 1,577,880.72) and
• R387 419 being favorably adjusted to outstanding consumer loan account balances (Since Inception: R 2,615,538.33).

Education Department

For the period April 2009-March 2010, the department achieved the following:

• 98.1m Advertising Value Equivalence (AVE), this represents the amount that the NCR would have spent for advertising had it advertised in the print, broadcast and electronic media.
• 415 consumer awareness and capacity building workshops where conducted in all nine provinces, covering both rural and urban areas;
• 8 Billboards carrying different consumer messages were flighted on its Pretoria-Johannesburg N 1 south route, targeting on average 60 000 daily motorists and
• 5 Outside broadcasts were staged with community based radio stations across the country as part of the NCR’s consumer education and awareness drive to reach-out to communities both rural and urban areas.

Debt Counselling Department

To facilitate the smooth running of the debt review system, the NCR has contracted Payment Distribution Agencies (PDAs), with the responsibility of collecting money from consumers and distributing this to credit providers in accordance with the restructured agreement. Five PDAs currently provide these services:

• Approximately R1,3 billion in debt review payments has been collected by PDA’s since March 2009-April 2010.
• Since inception, PDAs have received R1,8 billion and disbursed R1,6 billion.
• The NCR received about 7 000 to 8 000 new debt counselling applications every month, bringing the total number of applications since inception to 160 000. These are applications of consumers who could have had their houses, cars and other valuable possessions repossessed.

Investigations Department

There have been high profile cases involving non-compliant debt counsellors which the NCR took to the National Consumer Tribunal (NCT) involving:

• Mr. Zolile Senior Njokweni: Registration cancelled.
• Mr. Petrus Martinus Ferreira: Registration cancelled.
• Mr. Ralph Zulu: registration was cancelled; however, this cancellation was suspended for a period of one year. This effectively means that should Mr. Zulu contravene the NCA again within a year, he would not be allowed to proceed with his business.

Research and Statistics Department

• The NCR has successfully published five editions of the Consumer Credit Report. This report is produced on a quarterly basis and monitors the credit patterns regarding the supply and demand for consumer credit, the repayments history of various credit products and how credit is distributed among various income categories.
• Through these reports the NCR is able advice the South African Reserve Bank and National Treasury on the state of the credit industry based on the Consumer Credit Report.
• One of the positives that can be accredited to the advent of the NCA/NCR is that, for the quarter ended December 2007, the value of new credit granted was R102 billion and when compared to the quarter ended December 2009 the value new credit granted was R63 billion, a decline of R39 billion or 39%.

Credit Information and Research

• Credit Bureaux provide the NCR with information pertaining to the credit habits of consumers in South Africa. Since June 2007 the NCR has been publishing quarterly Credit Bureau Monitors reflecting the activity which occurs within the bureau’s databases in regard to consumer credit activity;
• In the last financial year 4 Credit Bureau Monitors we released making it 9 the total number of Monitors since inception;
• The value in doing this is that an accumulative perspective of the credit market is created affording a useful insight to the market for credit providers, credit bureaux, government and other stakeholders such as credit industry bodies and sector-associated ancillary service providers e.g. debt counsellors;
• As at December 2009, 77,8% of the population had a credit record, and out of a population of 38.37 million consumers, 47% were credit active and
• In short, the Credit Bureau Monitors are useful synopses of the South African credit market and its performance.