{"id":9170,"date":"2012-03-22T03:23:56","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T01:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/03\/swamped-by-debt-s-africans-battle-to-stay-afloat\/"},"modified":"2012-03-22T03:23:56","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T01:23:56","slug":"swamped-by-debt-s-africans-battle-to-stay-afloat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/swamped-by-debt-s-africans-battle-to-stay-afloat\/","title":{"rendered":"Swamped by debt, S.Africans battle to stay afloat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Banks pushing unsecured personal loans<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Household debt at 75 percent of disposable income<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Nearly half of borrowers are in arrears<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, March 21 (Reuters) &#8211; For years South Africa&#8217;s<br \/>\nbanks never realised they could make money out of millions of<br \/>\nlow-paid workers, but now they can&#8217;t stop &#8211; just ask Salma.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>After losing her husband and then her business, the<br \/>\n39-year-old mother of one is overwhelmed by a mortgage, car<br \/>\nfinance, six unsecured loans and debt on her four credit cards.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>That totals 120,000 rand ($15,800), equal to 10-1\/2 months<br \/>\nof the salary she earned before her business as a dance<br \/>\ninstructor all but collapsed.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If I knew what was coming, I wouldn&#8217;t have spent so much on<br \/>\nmy cards, no chance,&#8221; said Salma, who asked that she be<br \/>\nidentified only by her first name.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is emotionally disabling. I stress so much that I<br \/>\nactually get physically ill.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Banks pushing unsecured personal loans * Household debt at 75 percent of disposable income * Nearly half of borrowers are in arrears By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura JOHANNESBURG, March 21 (Reuters) &#8211; For years South Africa&#8217;s banks never realised they could make money out of millions of low-paid workers, but now they can&#8217;t stop &#8211; just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-9170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}