Q4 2024 Industry Insights
South Africa’s Lenders Adopted Prudent Risk Strategies to Drive Growth in Q4 2024
Q4 2024 Report highlights include:
- Card issuers rewarded performing existing cardholders with credit limit increases, but offered lower credit limits to new cardholders
- Consumers increasingly turned to non-bank lenders for personal loans
- Vehicle loan originations increased for the second consecutive quarter, indicating optimism for the sector
The country’s credit card issuers have adapted their acquisition strategies to enable prudent growth, while effective risk management has led to a decline in account-level delinquencies. During Q4 2024, credit card issuers reduced the average credit card limit on new accounts by 3.9% year-over-year (YoY), while at the same time they increased credit limits on existing credit cards by 5.0%.
Non-bank personal loan originations increased YoY across all risk tiers (except for the super prime risk tier, where originations declined by a marginal 1.0% YoY), with the greatest increase seen among prime borrowers (16.1%). However, bank personal loans declined across all risk tiers YoY, except for subprime, where they increased by 6.0% YoY.
Q4 2024 Metrics for Consumer Credit Products
“While the two recent interest rate decreases were just 25 basis points each, the significant increase in new vehicle loan originations indicates that South Africans are becoming more optimistic about their financial futures. While vehicle ownership is aspirational for many individuals, it’s also the key to unlocking growth for entrepreneurs, and the owners of micro and small enterprises, all of whom are the engines of economic growth in South Africa.”
- Lee Naik, CEO of TransUnion Africa
About the South Africa Industry Insights Report
TransUnion’s quarterly South Africa Industry Insights Report provides in-depth, statistical information drawn from its national consumer credit database, aggregated across virtually every active credit file on record. Each file contains hundreds of credit variables that illustrate consumer credit usage and performance. Entities across industries can subscribe to and leverage the Industry Insights Report to analyse market dynamics throughout an entire business cycle, helping them understand consumer behaviour over time.
The report looks at major consumer lending categories: credit cards, personal loans, home loans, vehicle and asset finance (VAF), and clothing, focusing primarily on three dimensions across these categories: originations (new accounts opened), balances (outstanding total and average lending balances) and delinquencies (accounts in payment arrears).
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