National Credit Act

The National Credit Act, No 34 of 2005 National Credit Act promote and advance the social and economic welfare of South Africans, promote a fair, transparent, competitive, sustainable, responsible, efficient, effective and accessible credit market and industry, and to protect consumers, by:

• promoting the development of a credit market that is accessible to all South Africans, and in particular to those who have historically been unable to access credit under sustainable market conditions;
• ensuring consistent treatment of different credit products and different credit providers;
• promoting responsibility in the credit market;
• promoting equity in the credit market by balancing the respective rights and responsibilities of credit providers and consumers;
• addressing and correcting imbalances in negotiating power between consumers and credit;
• improving consumer credit information and reporting and regulation of credit bureaux;
• addressing and preventing over-indebtedness of consumers, and providing mechanisms for resolving over-indebtedness based on the principle of satisfaction by the consumer of all responsible financial obligations;
• providing for a consistent and accessible system of consensual resolution of disputes arising from credit agreements; and
• providing for a consistent and harmonised system of debt restructuring, enforcement and judgment, which places priority on the eventual satisfaction of all responsible consumer obligations under credit agreements.