Whatever your finance question we'll have an answer.

 Of course! We can either email or fax you a copy of the contract – just let us know.

Call us on 021 764 3404.

On 23 March, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the establishment of a National Solidarity Fund to help in the combat of COVID-19. In partnership with FNB, we have opened an FNB bank account for financial contributions and donations in support of the National Solidarity Fund. Donate to the National Solidarity Fund using the following FNB Account details:

Account Name: Solidarity Fund

Account Number: 62848117447.

We thank BASA, the Competition Authorities, SARB and National Treasury for their leadership in these difficult times and commend all partners on the joint effort to protect our country against the impact of COVID-19.

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You’ll need to call us to have bank and personal details changed - for both our and your security. We need to confirm if the account is in your name and if your salary gets paid into this account.

Call us on 021 764 3404.

Step 1: Once you’ve accepted your loan quote, your bank will ask you to confirm the debit order information. They’ll do this by messaging you on the cell phone number that they normally use to communicate with you. You’ll need to confirm things like the specific repayment amount and terms – and that you’re giving us permission to debit your account.
Step 2: If everything’s in order, you can electronically confirm the debit order information via your cell phone. But other methods such as your bank app, internet banking, or ATM are also available.
Step 3: With the debit order confirmed, it will be submitted to your bank every month, and your bank will then check against the confirmed debit order information before processing it to your account.

Read more about DebiCheck.

You can request a statement and your balance via email, or just contact us and we will provide you with your outstanding balance.

Call us on 021 764 3404.

Or email us at CustomerCare@directaxis.co.za

Simply call us and we’ll provide you with a settlement amount based on the time that you need to settle the account. Bank details will be provided and after you make payment in the agreed time frame, we will close your account.

Call us on 021 764 3404.

In addition to helping our customers, we are also supporting our partners and have prioritized early settlement of invoices. We are committed to continue expediting payments to local suppliers to help improve their financial stability.

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Blacklisting is a catch-all term to describe what happens when someone is denied credit due to a poor credit record, although it is commonly used it’s seriously misleading. The term suggests that there’s a central blacklist. There is no such thing and you can’t get blacklisted. It’s a lazy way of trying to explain why someone was denied credit and it’s dangerous because it implies there’s nothing you can do about it.

The reality is that credit providers, such as banks and finance companies, base their decisions on whether to lend you money on information from credit bureaus. These are companies that calculate your credit score based on your behaviour – positive and negative.

If you pay your accounts on time every month your credit score will reflect this and credit providers will look on applications more favourably. For example you could receive a better interest rate and terms than someone with a lower credit score. On the other hand, if you don’t settle your accounts, or you skip a month and pay twice as much the next month, this will show on your credit score.

Suggesting a low credit score means you’ve been secretly blacklisted by some shadowy organisation is not only wrong, but ignores two important points – you have a right to know your credit score and you can do something about it.

How to check if you are blacklisted

South Africans are entitled to one free credit report each year. You can get this from any of the major credit bureaus. The report will tell you your score and you can also check for any mistakes.

If you have a low credit score and there are no mistakes on your account, you can still improve your credit score over time by settling overdue accounts. This won’t clear your credit record, but will improve your score.

Reducing what you owe and paying off debt rather than moving it around will also positively affect your score.

Remember your score is based on information found in your credit report. This includes your payment history, amounts owed, activity on an account, the age of your accounts, any judgements or defaults and enquiries about your credit worthiness. Ultimately it is your behaviour that determines whether a bank or other financial institution will consider you creditworthy. The score is just a reflection of that behaviour – good or bad.

Register for DirectAxis Pulse to receive your free credit report today.

Credit rating or credit score is one of those financial terms which is often bandied about, but not necessarily understood, so what is it and why is it important?

At its most basic level a credit rating is an estimate of a person or organisation’s ability to repay money they have borrowed based on their previous payment history.

Read more about credit rating.

Fixing interest rates doesn’t mean repairing them, but rather setting them at an agreed level for a specified time.

This is usually slightly higher than the unfixed or ‘floating’ interest rate, which can go up or down depending on where the Reserve Bank sets the rate at which other banks borrow money.

The benefits are that if you’re repaying a loan, your payments remain the same for the period over which the rate is fixed.

You pay exactly the same every month, even if the interest rate changes. Besides locking in certainty, fixing the interest rate should give you an advantage if the interest rate rises.

Albert Einstein described compound interest as the eighth wonder of the world, saying: “Those who understand it, earn it… those who don’t pay it.”

The simplest explanation is that compound interest is when you earn or pay interest on your interest.

For example, if you deposit or borrow a sum of money, say R10 000, at an interest rate of 10% per annum in the first month the interest will be based on the R10 000. In the second month, it is calculated on the R10 000 plus the interest you have earned. In the third month on the R10 000 plus the interest you have earned in the two preceding months and so on. In a table the compounding effect looks like this.

Sound complicated?

One way to understand the power of compounding is to think about the Chinese legend of rice on a chess board. The story goes that when the inventor of chess demonstrated the game to the emperor, the ruler was so impressed he asked him to name his reward. The man asked for a grain of rice to be placed on the first square of the board, two on the next, four on the next, eight on the next, with the quantity doubling every time for each of the 64 squares. The sum-total of all the rice would come to 18 446 744 073 709 551 615, much more than most people expect.

This compounding effect can be very beneficial if you’re saving or investing money. By earning interest on the interest you’re compounding your original investment. Based on the example above, after a year you’ll have earned R1 047,13 on your original investment of R10 000.

But, if you’ve borrowed money, the compounding works against you, because you’re paying interest on the original amount plus the interest that is added each month. That’s one of the reasons that it’s never a good idea to miss a repayment instalment on a loan – the interest will compound and you’ll end up paying more than the original instalments. You might also be subject to penalties and missing payments will probably impact your credit score.

How to calculate compound interest

There are plenty of online tools that will help you work out compound interest over a given period, such as the loan repayment calculator. 

If you’d prefer to do the calculations yourself the compound interest formula is A = P (1 + r/n) ^(nt)

‘A’ is the final amount, ‘P’ is the principal sum you’ve invested or borrowed, ‘r’ is the interest rate, ‘n’ is the number of compounding periods (months) in a year and ‘t’ is the time period in years.

What’s more important than knowing how to work out compound interest is appreciating the principle and the effect it can have on your financial situation. Understanding this enables you to make sound financial decisions.

The South African Reserve Bank and the Payments Association of South Africa, have introduced a new initiative called DebiCheck, as a way to help protect South Africans against fraudulent and incorrect debit order authorisations.
We have now also adopted DebiCheck as part of our processes – which we will be gradually introducing to our customers. This simply means that, should you decide to take out a loan with us, we may ask you to authorise your debit order with your bank.

Read more about DebiCheck.

Inflation is the rate at which the prices of things such as goods and services increase, while the purchasing power of the money in your wallet is falling.

In other words, as inflation increases your money buys you less.

By increasing the interest rates central banks, such as the Reserve Bank, make it more expensive to borrow money. Theoretically this means that consumers tend to have less money to spend and inflation decreases.

The difficulty that central banks have is that increasing interest rates also tends to slow the economy, so they have to try and strike a balance between economic growth and keeping inflation under control.

The repo rate is set by the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee and is the rate at which it lends money to the country’s commercial banks. The Reserve Bank adjusts this rate in order to keep inflation within its 3% to 6% target range.

The theory is that by upping the repo rate the Reserve Bank makes it less attractive to borrow money. This reduces the amount of money in the economy, so there’s less to spend. As spending slows its harder to increase prices and this helps keeps inflation in check.

So how does this impact you? When the repo rate goes up the commercial banks and other lenders put up their interest rates. This means, unless you have a fixed interest rate, you will pay more on your loans. In short an increase in the repo rate means the cost of borrowing money increases.

Read more about the Repo Rate.

If a debit order day falls on a weekend or public holiday, we track the account to the business day before. This is stipulated in our terms and conditions when you accept the loan.

With DebiCheck, you’re able to confirm your debit order details directly with your bank – and your bank will then check the debit order every month to ensure it matches the information you confirmed. If it doesn’t match, your bank will then reject the debit order before it comes off your account.

Read more about DebiCheck.