Some relief on vehicle debt

It might be too early to tell how bad the coronavirus pandemic and shut down of industry and commerce will affect people’s ability to settle their debts, because the economic impact is expected to last much longer than only the few months of lockdown.

As far as defaults on car instalments are concerned, finance houses and their customers are apparently managing the crisis quite well for now, with banks rolling out plans to give relief to people who suddenly could not work and earn an income.

Lebogang Gaoaketse, WesBank’s head of marketing and communications, said that up to the end of May, the bank had provided assistance to more than 66 000 customers involving in excess of R350 million.

“Our interventions continue to assist customers who demonstrated sound banking behaviour, such as having honoured their repayments to the bank on a consistent basis prior to Covid-19,” said Gaoaketse.

Trevor Browse, managing executive at Nedbank’s vehicle financing division MFC, said the bank offers three-month payment holidays if any proof of loss (or partial loss) of income due to the pandemic can be demonstrated.

“To date clients were offered a three-month payment holiday, and clients in arrears were assisted proactively too,” said Browse.

Absa Vehicle and Asset Finance offers a payment relief programme that is “available to all account holders who were in good standing, but had encountered financial difficulty”.

Faisal Mkhize, managing executive of Absa Vehicle and Asset Finance, said the unprecedented spread of Covid-19 has had wide-reaching consequences for individuals, businesses and communities, many of whom are the bank’s clients.

“The total relief that was extended to [our] customers is in excess of R2.2 billion,” said Mkhize.