OPINION EDITORIAL Exclusion does not mean protection By Leonie van Pletzen, CEO of CASA South Africa’s National Credit Act was designed to protect vulnerable borrowers from exploitation, over-indebtedness and opaque lending practices. That objective remains as important today as it was at the Act’s inception. But in one critical respect, our regulatory framework is no longer aligned with economic reality and the consequences are increasingly visible at the margins of the form

( Pretoria, 11 February 2026 ) The Credit Association of South Africa (CASA) has flagged that South Africa’s non-bank credit sector is facing a growing sustainability crisis. It reports that regulated credit fees and charges remain frozen under a framework that has not been meaningfully reviewed in over a decade. This is despite sharp increases in compliance costs, operating expenses, and consumer risk.   “The current structure of regulated fees under the National Credit Act