Online loans – compare offers up to R350 000 from NCR-licensed lenders across South Africa.

Income and payslips

Lenders start with your income: salary, commission, pension or business income. You will normally be asked for recent payslips or three months of bank statements, and a stable, documented income is weighted far more heavily than a high but irregular one.

Bank statements and spending

Your bank statements show how you actually live: debit orders, rent, transport, groceries and entertainment. Lenders use them to verify the affordability assessment required by the National Credit Act, so large unexplained outflows shortly before you apply can count against you.

Your credit report and score

South African credit bureaus such as TransUnion, Experian and Compuscan record how you have handled credit before. Missed instalments, defaults and judgments lower your score, while a long history of on-time payments pushes it up and unlocks lower interest rates.

Existing debts and commitments

Every active credit agreement – credit cards, store accounts, vehicle finance, other personal loans – reduces the room in your budget. Many small accounts can signal financial stress even when each balance is tiny, so lenders add them all up before deciding.

Affordability under the NCA

After tax and essential expenses there must be enough left to carry the new instalment comfortably. The National Credit Act obliges lenders to check this, and granting credit recklessly without a proper assessment carries serious consequences for the lender.

The affordability assessment

The National Credit Act obliges every lender to check that you can afford the instalment before granting credit. They take your net income, subtract your declared and visible living costs, subtract existing debt repayments, and what remains is your capacity. It is a legal duty, not a courtesy: reckless lending exposes the lender to serious consequences.

A worked example

Take a net income of R25 000, living costs of R14 000 and existing repayments of R3 000. Around R8 000 remains. A lender will not let a new instalment consume all of it – a margin for the unexpected must remain – so an instalment in the R3 000 to R4 000 range is realistic, which supports roughly R120 000 to R160 000 over 60 months at typical rates.

Why two identical salaries differ

The same payslip can support very different loans. An applicant with no store accounts and a clean record borrows near the top of the range, while another with the identical salary but five active accounts and a recent missed payment may be offered a third of the amount at a higher rate. Capacity is about the whole picture, never the income alone.

Borrow less than your maximum

The smartest amount is usually below what you qualify for. Every rand borrowed accrues interest for up to 72 months, and a buffer between your instalment and your true capacity is what keeps one bad month from becoming a missed payment. Decide what you need first, then check what you can afford – in that order.