Consumer credit health remained stable during the third quarter, the National Credit Regulator (NCR) said on Thursday.
New credit granted to consumers increased by 4.92 percent.
The number of consumers with impaired records increased by 28,000 quarter-on-quarter.
The total value of new credit granted increased from R104.57 billion for the quarter ended June 2012 to R109.72 billion for the quarter ended September 2012.
The growth in the value of new unsecured credit granted slowed down for the quarter, the regulator said.
This indicator increased only marginally, by 0.67 percent, when compared to the previous quarter, and by 22.43 percent when compared to the same period a year ago.
Mortgages grew 6.76 percent and secured credit, dominated by vehicle finance, grew by 6.45 percent when compared to the previous quarter.
The number of credit applications increased by 611,000, from 9.77 million in June to 10.38 million in September.
This was a 6.26 percent quarter-on-quarter increase and a 24.96 percent increase year-on-year.
The value of new mortgages granted increased from R26.94 billion to R28.76 billion.
Secured credit rose from R33 billion for June to R35.16 billion for September.
Unsecured credit increased marginally from R25.8 billion for June to R25.97 billion for September, a 0.67 percent quarterly increase.
This was a significant slowdown compared to a quarterly increase of 17.55 percent for the quarter ending in June.
Total outstanding credit owed by consumers reached R1.39 trillion at the end of September - a quarter-on-quarter growth rate of 2.01 percent and an annual increase of 9.81 percent.
Mortgages accounted for almost 60 percent of this figure.
In total, 88 percent of total outstanding credit was owed to banks, a further three percent to retailers, non-bank vehicle financiers were owed 3.42 percent, and other credit providers 5.41 percent.
This category included pension-backed lenders, insurers, non-bank mortgage lenders, and securitised debt.
Credit bureaux held records for 19.69 million credit-active consumers, an increase of 0.5 percent when compared to the 19.6
million of the previous quarter.
The number of consumers classified in good standing increased by 62,000 to 10.45 million.
This was a decrease of 0.8 percent year-on-year.
The number of consumers with impaired records increased by 28,000 from 9.22 million to 9.25 million quarter-on-quarter. - Sapa