CARMEL RICKARD: Credit where it’s due
Zambia’s supreme court has ruled on a R238m judgment in the final act of a test case that put the country’s credit reference system in the spotlight
A controversial Zambian company has finally lost its bid to obfuscate nonpayment of its bank loan and claim huge damages from the bank for handing over default data to the local credit agency. The case, which has gone through the entire court hierarchy, is the first to test the system of credit data reporting in Zambia. There is speculation in the country’s media about the effect on the firm’s finances of the new decision by the country’s highest court. Savenda Management Services, a global supply chain management company, needed a printing machine and applied to Stanbic for a loan of US$540,000. Monthly repayments were to be made by debit order from one of the company’s bank accounts. However, problems with the bank’s systems meant the company’s instructions on the debit order were sent to the wrong account. The bank wrote to Savenda, explaining the problem and saying it had been sorted out. But when the bank straightened out the paperwork, the account was still in arrears of about...
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