SIX YEARS OF DEBT REVIEW — AND AFRICAN BANK STILL CANNOT JUSTIFY THE LAST BALANCE

This is a warning to other consumers dealing with African Bank's debt-review and collections departments: keep every statement, every email and every document you send them.

After approximately six years of debt review, virtually every account in this particular debt-review portfolio has been settled. African Bank is now the only material account preventing the process from finally being brought to an end.

The problem is not that the consumer refuses to pay.

The consumer's position has consistently been very simple: if African Bank can prove that an amount is lawfully outstanding, it will be paid. What is disputed is whether the balance African Bank continues to claim has actually been properly proved.

African Bank's own records reflect a stated principal debt of approximately R88,607.50 and total payments received of approximately R175,276.85.

Their records also reflect approximately R70,372.93 in interest and R22,819.37 in credit-life insurance.

There are also 62 ledger entries described by African Bank itself as “Arrears Interest”, with a net value of approximately R22,145.61.

Nobody is saying that every interest or insurance charge is automatically ********. That is not the complaint.

The complaint is that when a consumer questions these figures and asks for the original agreement, the daily interest calculations, the rate history, the insurance documentation, the section 103(5) calculation and the source records proving the final balance, those questions should be answered properly.

Instead, this has now dragged on for months.

What makes this even more frustrating is the handling of the authority documents.

On 22 July 2026, African Bank was sent a completed PAIA Form 2 together with a signed Special Power of Attorney authorising a representative to obtain the relevant records. These were sent to the African Bank debt-counselling address specifically in response to African Bank asking for them.

Weeks later, African Bank's Regulatory Disputes Department asked for the same PAIA form and Power of Attorney again and indicated that the documents had not been received.

The original email exists.

The attachments exist.

The date exists.

The recipient exists.

They have now been sent again, together with the original emails proving the first transmission.

At some point this stops being a consumer documentation problem and becomes an internal administration problem.

The dispute has now had to be referred to the National Financial Ombud Scheme. The NFO has opened case *** and formally given African Bank 21 working days to resolve or properly answer the complaint.

This should never have needed to reach that point.

What is particularly upsetting is what this means in real life. After six years of making payments under debt review, a person should be able to reach the end of the process and continue with their life. Instead, one disputed residual balance can keep the entire process hanging while departments ask for information that has already been supp**** and source questions remain unanswered.

This review is not saying African Bank must simply write off money.

It is saying something much more basic:

If you say a consumer still owes money after six years of debt-review payments, prove the balance properly.

Show the agreement.

Show the rate.

Show the calculations.

Show the insurance basis.

Show the section 103(5) calculation.

Then, if money is genuinely owed, it can be paid.

Consumers should be extremely careful to preserve their own records and should not simply assume that because a balance appears on a statement, every component creating that balance has necessarily been checked and explained.

I hope African Bank now uses the NFO process to finally resolve this properly. But after months of correspondence and repeated document requests, I believe other consumers are entitled to know how difficult it has been simply to obtain a final, source-based answer.