Sager says although payment holidays were good news for people facing a short-term cash crunch, they came at a cost. This is as a result of interest accumulating on the debt owed, even though payments were put on hold for a while.
DebtBusters’ analysis was conducted based on the profiles of typical consumers who applied for debt counselling over the past year. The analysis includes a breakdown of how a three-month payment holiday affected the consumers’ debt:A three-month payment holiday on vehicle finance came at an additional cost of R6 000.People who took payment holidays on all three types of debt will, on average, have to repay R30 100 on top of what they owed.
Bloomberg reported last week on how impaired loans in the banking sector had risen from about R165bn in February to more than R220bn at the end of June.