WesBank chief blasts R699 banks

CHRIS de Kock, the CEO of WesBank, has slammed rivals for lending credibility to Albert Venter’s failed “buy a new car for R699” scheme.

While WesBank refused to lend to clients of Venter’s Satinsky group, the other big banks — Nedbank, Standard Bank and Absa — lent altogether R2.8-billion through the R699 scheme to more than 20 000 people.

In an interview this week, De Kock said that his rivals did “a huge injustice to their customers by lending their brand credibility to a brand that had nothing and continues to have no brand equity in the market”.

“They got the banks to use their brands to lend credibility to the scheme.

“So I’m an unsuspecting customer, I read about this scheme on the back of a windscreen and phone the call centre.

We decline deals on affordability that other banks approve -Chris de

Kock

“The call centre puts me through a finance process with a credible big-four bank. I can understand why customers didn’t sense that this thing was a problem. There is a big brand that is involved in this thing.”

Absa acknowledged last week that it had provided about R700-million in loans to more than 1 600 customers.

This week, Nedbank revealed it had lent more than R1.6-billion to Venter’s customers. Standard Bank lent R468-million.

Those banks are now being sued in the Port Elizabeth High Court for “reckless lending”.

Asked if the other banks lent recklessly, De Kock said: “All I can say is that we decline lots of deals on affordability that other banks [approve]. In our view, we can never understand how they do them. Whether they are reckless or we’re more conservative is open for debate.”