New Limitations on Fees and Interest Rates in terms of the National Credit Act from 6 May 2016

On 6 May 2016, the Limitations on Fees and Interest Rates Regulations (Final Regulations) in terms of the National Credit Act, 2005 (NCA) will come into effect. These regulations effectively amend interest rates and fees, which credit providers can levy on consumer credit such as  consumers’ home loans, credit cards, store cards and unsecured credit transactions. See the following short article for a summary of the new interest rates and charges: http://www.polity.org.za/article/new-limits-for-consumer-credit-charges-2016-03-10.

Consumer Rights Radio Show 7 March 2016

 

 

Consumer Rights: What you need to know - Monday, 7 March 2016, 11h00-12h00

 

Credit Bureau Association: Bureau Business - Edition No. 2

 

Here's to a productive 2016! Greetings to our members, stakeholders and partners. Thank you for taking a few minutes (about five, we estimate) to catch up on our news and upcoming initiatives contained below.  We're already into the third month of what promises to be an extremely busy and productive year. First off, on behalf of the Credit Bureau Association, I would like to extend a warm welcome to our newest member, VeriCred Credit Bureau. It's a pleasure to have you on board.  What's keeping us busy… The review process for the policy directives (stemming from the NCA and other related amendments) kicked off at the end of last year and is currently being concluded. While this took a little longer than expected, the discussion was thorough and robust, and allowed us to work through every directive, ensuring its relevance and compliance to the amended legislation. In the end, members will be please to hear no new directives were implemented. Instead, the existing directives were refreshed and consolidated as required. A similar approach was taken to the CBA Constitution which also needed to be reviewed in light of the prevailing legislation. The next "table leg" here is the Code of Conduct which will be revised in line with the applicable sections of the PoPIA code. Although we are still awaiting definite news on the appointment of the regulator, we are forging ahead and will continue to work to ensure that we are ready to submit our code as soon as the appointment is confirmed. The updated Constitution will be tabled at the CBA AGM – a date for which will be advised shortly.   Featured in Coming up in 2016 We are anticipating engagement with the NCR around the Reg 19(13) guidelines, which will prescribe the format in which data must be shared by the industry shortly. We also continue to engage with the Department of Justice around the sharing of maintenance judgment information and the Cybercrime Bill.  We will communicate any updates on these with our members in due course.     Our consumer education drive continues In 2015 we made great strides on our plans to engage more with the media and with consumers directly. We were featured in a number of educational-slanted news articles (online and in print) and on talk radio, and our members generously made resources available to support the Know Your Credit Status campaign and give out credit reports at several private and public events. This included attending the National Credit Regulator's own staff wellness day event, and partnering with the NCR to take the same service to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) at the end of 2015 and the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) in early 2016. We have a number of similar events on the horizon in 2016, and our upcoming media initiatives include a series of in-depth interviews on Unisa Radio and a feature in the Business Day newspaper.  As always, if you have exciting initiatives coming up, please share them with us by replying directly to this mail or to enquiries@cba.co.za.

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The need to regulate credit life insurance

 

Garnishee orders: what you need to know

 

Newsletter of the Credit Bureau Association - Edition No. 1

 

 

Meet the new agile Credit Bureau Association Let me start this note by saying, “Welcome, and thanks”. You are receiving this newsletter – our first! – as a valued stakeholder of the Credit Bureau Association (CBA). It has been a busy year, and we wanted to take the time to let you in on what we’ve been up to. Shortly after I joined the CBA as the new executive manager in June 2014, we moved offices to our new low-key, cost-effective space in The Oval Office Park, Bryanston. The smaller space is more than adequate for our needs, and also allowed us to reduce some of our running costs and overheads. This is just one of the steps we have taken towards ensuring we remain a cost-effective and efficient industry body. With efficiency in mind, we also reorganised the way in which our member workstreams were structured to try make the best use of members’ time. This has led to the consolidation of some streams, as well as to more efficient use of video and teleconferencing facilities. At the start of the year, we also bid farewell to our long-serving chairman Ramesh Pillay, and welcomed Geoff Miller as the new CBA chairman. Below you will find some of the highlights of the work we have been involved in. We know you’re busy, so we’ve kept it concise. If you would like more information on any of these initiatives, please get in touch. 2015: a year of robust, constructive  industry participation It may go without saying, but between the credit information amnesty and the publication of the amendments to the Credit Act, it has been an eventful 18 months in the credit space! We at the CBA have had plenty of excellent opportunities to participate in constructive discussion with our partners in credit and related fields, and we’ve jumped at the chance to take up as many of them as possible. On behalf of our members, the CBA engaged with the DTI and NCR on the Amendment act matters. We made our submissions and sought legal opinion on issues that have the potential to change the way in which the entire industry operates. To ensure we comply with these changes, we are busy reviewing our policy directives. We engaged with Department of Justice around the proposed changes to the Maintenance Act and the possible use of credit bureaus to trace maintenance defaulters. We made submissions to the NCR on the listing of medical info, and met with the NCR on debt review matters. We were also delighted to be asked to participate as a category judge in Debt Free Digi’s 2015 Debt Review Awards, an initiative endorsed by the NCR and all major players in that sector of the industry. We were invited to present at the first DTI credit conference on the impact of amnesty in September last year and again at the second conference at Birchwood on the new amendments in March this year. On an on-going basis, the CBA participates in a number of industry forums to ensure that we are able to represent members at all levels. We sit on the NCR CIF forum, and serve on the Credit Ombud council, where we were involved in the appointment of the new ombud. We are continuously engaging with the South African Credit and Risk Reporting Association (SACRRA, previously the Credit Providers Association) regarding how the industry deals with data. Finally, we continue to develop for Project Evolution compliance, and we expect to have all major data suppliers on board by June 2016.   Heads up   CBA members and other industry players can look forward to the appointment of the PoPI regulator in 2016. The CBA has drafted a proposed PoPIA code in anticipation of the appointment. As you are no doubt aware, we also welcomed a new Credit Ombud in 2015, Nicky Lala-Mohan.  Welcome, Nicky!     Featured in Face-to-face with credit consumers Consumer education, outreach and empowerment were some of our “mini missions” in 2014-2015; We wanted to address credit myths, help people empower themselves through knowledge, and understand what concerns real credit consumers had. We saw public events as an excellent way to do this. As a collective of the consumer information-holding bureaus, we took a stand at the 2014 Soweto Festival, issuing free credit reports to consumers. In 2015, we joined forces with SACCRA and the Credit Ombud on an event at Unisa campus in Pretoria in August. And we jumped at an invite from the National Credit Regulator to attend their Spring Day to provide NCR staff with access to their personal credit reports. In October, we also partnered with the NCR and the Ombud on a mall activation at Greenstone, where over 730 consumers were able to view their free reports and a lot of positive engagement, education and conversation happened.  Through our public relations and consumer outreach work, the CBA has been featured in print, online and broadcast media, helping us reach an even wider national audience, with touchpoints and takeaways aimed at different audiences and segments of South African society. For a taste of some of the media outlets we’ve appeared in, see “Featured in” (above right). Looking forward Even though the year is winding down, we aren't. We're working with the Department of Justice on adding maintenance judgements onto the bureau data in compliance with the new Maintenance Act Amendment Act, and with the Gauteng Rental Housing Tribunal to see how we can enrich bureau data with this information. With the new year in sight, the CBA is hard at work preparing our 2016 strategies, budgets, and reviewing the organisation's constitution and code of conduct. The latter we look forward to sharing with our members – along with any new codes and policy directives – at the CBA AGM early next year. Keep an eye on your inbox for more details, or contact us directly via the new, redesigned CBA website.

Credit Bureau Association · St Georges Building, The Oval Office Park, · 1 Meadowbrook Lane (Corner of Sloane Street), Bryanston, · Johannesburg, Gauteng 2192 · South Africa