Ledwaba Clan

I have spent most of my working life explaining money to people who were never really given a fair shot at understanding it. Short-term credit is where I ended up, because it is where the confusion tends to do the most harm. Someone borrowing R1 500 to fix a car so they can get to work is not reading fine print in an office. They are reading whatever loads on their phone late at night, and what loads there is often written to sell, not to explain.

That gap is the whole reason I do this. As Senior Financial Editor at Instant Fund I set the bar every guide has to reach before it goes live. Plain words instead of clever ones. The real cost of a loan shown in rands, not hidden inside a percentage. No talk of guaranteed approval, because no honest lender can guarantee it. If a line would mislead a tired, worried reader, it does not run.

Most of my day is reading rather than writing. The National Credit Act, notices from the National Credit Regulator, the fee caps on short-term credit, the rules around prescribed debt and reckless lending. When those rules shift, and they do, the guides that lean on them get pulled back and reworked instead of being left to drift out of date. I would far rather a page say a little and be right than say plenty and be wrong.

My editing style is blunt in private and calm on the page. I cut adjectives, I question numbers, and I ask the same thing of every draft: would this help my own aunt if she were standing in a queue trying to decide whether to take a loan? If the answer is no, it goes back. I work from Cape Town, though the money questions I edit are the same everywhere in the country. What keeps me interested is not clever finance. It is the ordinary, high-pressure decision that a bit of clear, honest information can make a good deal less costly.