• Registered lenders in South Africa are capped at 5% interest a month, but mashonisas often charge 30 to 50 percent.

• It is a crime for a lender to hold your ID, bank card or SASSA card as security against debt.

Borrow R100 from a mashonisa and it can come back as R150 owed. Borrow R200, and it becomes R300.

This is common enough in Tsakane and elsewhere that most people already know it by feel, even if they have never worked out what it means in percentage terms. It works out to roughly 50% interest, charged again each time the money is borrowed.

Mashonisas are not registered with the National Credit Regulator. The regulator says any loan from an unregistered lender is illegal, and the debt cannot be enforced in court.

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Registered lenders in South Africa are capped at 5% interest a month under the National Credit Act. Mashonisas commonly charge between 30% and 50% a month, several times over that legal limit.

Being illegal does not mean borrowers are protected in practice. It is a criminal offence for a lender to hold someone's ID book, driver's licence, bank card, PIN or SASSA card as security for a debt.

Threats, intimidation, assault and theft remain crimes no matter what is owed. Only a court appointed sheriff may remove someone's property over a debt.

None of this changes why people still go to a mashonisa in the first place. When a grant or a wage runs out before the month does, it is often the only place left to turn.