Choosing a lender · Comparison
Three routes to a lender and how each one gets paid
There are three ways to reach a lender in South Africa. You can go straight to a lender, go through a broker, or use a comparison or introducer platform like this one. The labels get used loosely, so the useful question is not what a site calls itself but who pays it and what it tells you. This guide follows the money down each route, sets out what each cannot do, and gives you the one registration check that settles who is legitimate. Some readers will finish it and go directly to their own bank. That is a fine outcome.
Why the words broker, introducer and comparison site all blur together
None of these three words is a legal category in South Africa. The National Credit Act defines a credit provider as a party to the credit agreement, and the words "intermediary" and "lead generator" do not appear in the Act at all, while "broker" appears only in the phrase "pawn broker".
Most articles on this topic open by defining a broker as though the law had defined one. It has not.
Credit-provider status attaches to whoever is a party to your credit agreement, the party who advances the money or later acquires those rights. Arranging, marketing or introducing credit does not make you one, and calling yourself something else does not either.
The National Credit Regulator registers exactly five kinds of business: credit providers, credit bureaux, debt counsellors, alternative dispute resolution agents, and payment distribution agencies. Broker, introducer, comparison platform and lead generator appear nowhere on that list.
Even the regulator uses the language loosely. Its own consumer guidance calls advice centres, trade-union officials and provincial consumer directories "consumer credit intermediaries", a different animal from a website routing your application to a lender.
You will see the blur on this site too. The footer below calls BetterLoans a loan broker, while our our own description of the service and comparison pages call us a comparison and introducer service. Both say the same substantive thing, which is that we are not a lender. The label is loose; the disclosure is not.
So judge a route by the two things a label cannot hide: how it is paid, and what it tells you upfront.
The three routes side by side
Direct means no one sits between you and the lender. A broker may be paid by the lender, by you, or by both. A comparison or introducer platform is paid by the lending partner it introduces you to, and the lender may not pass that cost on to you.
| Route | Who pays them | What they can do for you | What they cannot do for you | How to check they are legitimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Straight to a lender | Nobody in the middle. The lender's costs sit inside the loan's regulated charges. | Give you that lender's full range, and any rate a long customer relationship earns you. | Show you anything outside their own shelf. Each extra lender is a separate application you make yourself. | Look the lender up on the NCR register and check the name matches. |
| Broker | May take commission from the lender, may charge you, or both. Ask which, in writing. | Do the legwork across a panel of lenders and explain products you would otherwise decode alone. | Reach lenders outside their panel, which may be narrower than it looks. | No broker register exists, so check the lender they put you in front of, and ask how they are paid. |
| Comparison or introducer platform | The lending partner pays for the introduction. You pay nothing. | Put one set of details in front of several matched NCR-registered lenders instead of you repeating the exercise. | Show you every product on the market. We aim to show a wide range of options, but not every product out there, and we never make the lending decision. | Same test: check the lender you are introduced to. There is no register category for the platform itself. |
One line there is a legal protection rather than a business courtesy. Under section 100 of the Act, a credit provider may not charge you, or put a liability on you, for a fee, charge, commission or expense it pays a third party in connection with your credit agreement, and contravening that section is a criminal offence. So a commission a lender pays an introducer cannot lawfully be pushed onto your loan.
How BetterLoans is paid, in plain terms
A lending partner pays us a commission when your application is completed and introduced to them. You never pay us, and what we are paid changes nothing about the rate you are offered or what we publish.
Two further points, because a disclosure that leaves out the awkward parts is not one.
What we are paid does not depend on the rand value of your loan, so we have no reason to steer you towards borrowing more than you need.
And we do not show you everything. We aim to cover a wide range of options, but not every product on the market. If a lender you already bank with is not among our partners, going to them directly may get you a better answer than we can. That is the honest limit of this route, and it is why the direct row exists in the table above.
The distinction that matters is not broker versus platform. It is whether a site tells you plainly that your details will be passed on. Some South African operations present themselves as lenders while collecting details to hand to someone else, and that gap is what costs people.
If you are already under debt review, none of these routes is open to you for new credit. Speak to your debt counsellor about the process that applies to you.
If a comparison route suits you, one short application puts you in front of NCR-registered lending partners matched to what you need. We are an introducer, not the lender. No upfront fees, no obligation, and approval rests on affordability and each lender's own checks.
Can someone charge you a fee for arranging your loan
Yes, in some circumstances a person who is not the lender may be paid for arranging your credit. The law does not ban this; it conditions it, and those conditions are rights you can use.
Section 163(3) of the National Credit Act covers a person who is not the credit provider's employee or agent and who solicits, completes or concludes a credit agreement for a credit provider or for a consumer. Where it applies, the Act requires three things:
- that person must be identified by name and identity number in the credit agreement;
- they must tell you in writing what fee or commission they will be paid if the agreement goes ahead; and
- any fee or commission charged to you may only be paid if the agreement is actually concluded.
The practical rule is short. Ask what they are paid and by whom, and ask for the answer in writing. Anyone who will not put it in writing has told you what you needed to know.
A second protection sits alongside it, and it is worth being precise about what it does. Section 101 sets a closed list of what your credit agreement may require you to pay: the principal debt, an initiation fee, a service fee, interest, the cost of credit insurance, default administration charges and collection costs. An arranging or introduction fee is not among those seven, so it cannot be loaded into the loan itself. That is not the same as saying no one may ever charge you for arranging credit, which is what section 163(3) above deals with. And an initiation fee cannot be applied at all unless your application results in a credit agreement.
Separately, the NCR is unambiguous that it is unlawful for a credit provider to charge you an upfront fee, meaning a payment demanded before your loan is granted. The regulator's warning is aimed at credit providers and at fake ones posing as lenders. If anyone asks for money to release, unlock or guarantee a loan, that is not a fee to negotiate. The NCR's guidance is to open a criminal case with the police.
We charge you nothing at any stage, so none of this applies to using this site. It applies to whoever arranges your loan.
Four questions to ask, and the one check that settles it
Before you hand over your ID number to anyone, ask who pays them, which lenders they work with, what they do with your details, and whether they charge you anything. Then check the lender itself on the NCR register.
Ask any broker, comparison site or intermediary these four, word for word if you like:
- Who pays you, the lender or me, and how much?
- Which lenders are on your panel, and are you tied to any of them?
- Who else will receive my details, and will they contact me?
- Do you charge me anything at any stage, including if my loan is declined?
The answers matter less than the willingness to answer.
Then run the check that settles it. Registered credit providers are listed on the NCR's public register at ncr.org.za. Look the lender up and confirm the company name, trading name and contact details match what you were shown. The NCR warns that a fake credit provider typically borrows a real provider's registration number and lists premises that do not exist, so matching the name matters more than seeing a number.
A shared number, though, is not automatically a red flag. FNB, DirectAxis and WesBank all legitimately declare NCRCP20, because they sit in one banking group. The warning sign is a mismatch between the registered entity and the trading name.
Run that check on the lender at the end of the route, whichever route you took. There is no NCR register category for a broker or a comparison platform, so anyone telling you to verify that *they* are NCR-registered as a broker is describing a register that does not exist.
That absence is about registers, not about rules. Whoever handles your details still answers to the law protecting your personal information, and the regulator can act against anyone who holds themselves out as authorised to do something they are not registered for. A site claiming an NCR registration it does not hold is the exact pattern the NCR warns about.
So choose, rather than rank. Going direct suits you if you bank somewhere already and would rather no third party held your details. A comparison route suits you if you want several matched lenders to see one application instead of you repeating it lender by lender. Each lender that assesses you for credit records an enquiry on your credit record, so not repeating that yourself lender by lender is a real difference. It is not a way to avoid enquiries altogether, though. A partner that assesses you still records one. A broker suits you if you want a person to walk you through a panel. None can guarantee approval, because every lender has a legal duty to assess whether you can afford the repayment. For what a broker does day to day, see what a personal loan broker does.
If you have decided to approach your own bank after reading this, you have used this guide exactly as intended. If a comparison route suits you better, one short application introduces you to NCR-registered lending partners matched to what you are looking for. BetterLoans is an introducer, not the lender, and a partner pays us only once your application is completed. You pay us nothing, there are no upfront fees, there is no obligation to accept an offer, and approval depends on affordability and each lender's own checks.