Compliance
NCA affordability assessment: what South African credit providers must document
Under the National Credit Act, a credit provider must genuinely assess whether a consumer can afford the credit before granting it. Courts have been clear: the affordability assessment is a substantive obligation, not paperwork.
What the obligation actually requires
Verified income, documented obligations, and a forward-looking discretionary income calculation. A credit provider that processes an assessment without genuinely assessing affordability has satisfied nothing at all.
Pre-screening as the first gate
NCA pre-screening enforces your minimum criteria — for example R1m minimum turnover and 3+ active supply clients — at application stage. The rule cannot be bypassed.
An auditable risk score
A weighted risk engine — credit score 40%, financials 30%, industry risk 20%, collateral 10% — produces a reproducible score and credit risk profile you can see, defend and adjust.
Run the 12-point readiness check
A scored report naming your compliance gaps — and the control that closes each.
Common questions
Asked straight.
Granting credit without a proper affordability assessment is reckless lending — an offence under the NCA with serious consequences.
Keep reading
Compliance
POPIA compliance checklist for South African lenders
POPIA applies to every business that processes personal information in South Africa — and for lenders, the exposure is concentrated: client financial data, credit records, KYC documents. Penalties run to R10 million per infringement, with criminal prosecution possible in severe cases.
Compliance
Credit committee approval: setting your deal threshold
The bigger the deal, the more people should sign it. A credit committee threshold — loans above R1,000,000, say — is how syndication businesses prevent single-person control over large exposure.
The category
What is a capital intermediary platform?
The lender industry built software for the lender that funds its own book. It never built software for the company that sources the deal and funds it with someone else's capital. That company is a capital intermediary — and the gap in software is exactly what Apex was built to fill.