Page 24 - Interface August Issue 2026

While the country talks about

saving, salaried South Africa

is missing its payments

By Siva Dhever

Every July we tell South Africans to put money away. The credit

bureau data shows something we are not talking about: overdue
debt is growing almost 3 times faster than borrowing itself, and

most of it belongs to people with payslips.

spend my working life watching Every July, Savings Month arrives with the same well-meaning advice.
South Africa’s credit behaviour Build an emergency fund. Pay yourself first. Skip the takeaways.
I update in near real time. Millions None of it is wrong. It is simply aimed at a country that, according
of accounts, every product you to the data in front of me, has a more urgent problem than a lack of
can think of, every income band. savings discipline.
Most months the picture moves
slowly. This year it has not. Here is what the bureau data shows. South Africa’s
unsecured credit book now stands at
R408.7 billion, up around 28% in a year.
That alone would be worth a national
conversation. But the number that should
be keeping us up at night is this one:
overdue balances have grown almost
80% over the same period, to
R88.9 billion. Read those 2 figures
together. Borrowing is growing fast,
and the portion of it
going bad is
growing nearly
3 times
faster.

INTERFACEDigimag | AUGUST 2026 | 22