“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
- Peter Drucker

I know this doesn’t really fall under credit management but it tickled my staff and I so much I just had to share it.
We just successfully completed some litigation against a government department who were represented at trial by the state attorneys office. In order to make payment to us the state attorney’s office had requested various bits of information. The latest fax to come in from the state attorney requested the following:
“(a) Certified copy of your client; and…..”
We are still trying to figure out how to fit our client …

Business Day speculates that a 1 % rate hike is on the cards follow high inflation figures.
” ANOTHER big week is pending for local economic data, as the numbers due for release are set to paint a picture of the inflation outlook and the direction of interest rates.
The consensus seems to be that the Reserve Bank will tighten monetary policy further, as the markets are pricing in another 100-basis-point hike, following two 50-basis-point hikes in June and this month.

The obvious benefits of computerization and automation of the debt collection process, at whatever stage, is obvious. This extends from pre-hand over to pre-legal collections through to legal collections. I remember as a young candidate attorney in the earlier 1990s being at an attorneys firm with a large collections department. The staff was large to deal with the extremely manual process, various collection supervisors, an army of typists, collection clerks, filing clerks and payment clerks. A staff compliment of 4 employees back then dealt with what a current single collection …

Business Report has an article taking on the bad eggs in the microlending industry.
“The National Credit Regulator (NCR) would not back down in protecting consumers against reckless lenders in the R22.9 billion microfinance industry, it said last week, adding that it had referred 62 microlenders for prosecution in the criminal courts.
Since 2000 a total of 655 investigations on registered lenders have been concluded and 162 companies have been disciplined, with R955 600 levied in fines, according to the regulator’s investigation and prosecution statistics.
Of the unregistered lenders that have been investigated, …

I just read a very good article by Frank Knight of Debtsource dealing with the potential pitfalls of so-called “COD accounts”. The article is reproduced below:
“I had to contain myself when the business owner told me that he wants to convert his entire company to a COD basis as he is sick of debtors that don’t pay. I wasn’t thinking of the loss of sales he’d experience as good clients who can get credit from his competitors won’t buy from him; or even thinking how he would convert his term …

Business Reports sets outs Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni’s reasons for the latest 0.5 percentage point rise in the repo rate to 8 percent.
he cited many of them, including the oil price, which averaged $74 a barrel in July, CPIX (consumer price index less mortgage rates) inflation at 4.8 percent in June and the producer price index rising 7.5 percent.
There are other concerns. The R103.1 billion current account deficit in the first quarter is equal to 6.4 percent of gross domestic product. The household debt to income ratio hit a …

CITI, Cape Information Technology Initiative, reports that Woolworths, one of Africa’s largest clothing retailers, has signed a multi-million Rand Credit Systems Outsource contract with PIC Solutions.
In this relationship, the ICT personnel from the Woolworths credit systems support team will join PIC Solutions, who will, over the next three years, provide on-going support and maintenance to Woolworths for their VisionPLUS, TRIAD and StrategyWare software systems. In addition, PIC Solutions will be responsible for the optimisation of the current systems environment and all enhancements required in the future. PIC Solutions will provide …

I just received a email containing a legal overview of the National Credit Act from Lawsure a firm specialising in giving legal opinions.
As the email was unsolicited and free I’m sure they would not have any object to me reproducing it here and giving them credit. This particularly in light of a glib comment I have read on the net from a credit management source stating that the Act would have little impact.

In line with the recent reports on the performance of various credit providers is the article by Business Report on the performance of Standard Bank.
“Standard Bank Group, Africa’s largest bank, said first-half profit rose as much as 30 percent as lower interest rates spurred an increase in lending.
“The momentum of consumer lending was still going great guns over the period,” Steve Meintjes, an analyst at Imara SP Reid, said by phone from Johannesburg.
South African banks, which reap fees from debit and credit card transactions, have profited from a surge in …