Editorial Policy

01About this policy

This is the policy that governs the editorial side of www.instantfund.co.za. It covers how we write our blog posts, FAQs, guides and product pages, who is responsible for the content, what we will and will not publish, and how we handle corrections.

The plain rule we are trying to live by: the policy describes what we actually do. If the workflow changes, the policy changes with it. We update the "Last reviewed" date at the top of the page whenever that happens.

This policy sits next to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Disclaimer. Each of those handles a different question; this one is just about content.

02Editorial Lead & team

One named human is accountable for what gets published on this site.

Beyond the Editorial Lead, our content is produced by a small team of in-house writers and contracted contributors with experience in South African consumer finance. Every contributor signs a brief confirming they have read this policy and will follow it. Every published piece carries a byline (or, where the piece is collaboratively written or operational, the Editorial Lead's byline) and a "Last reviewed" date.

03What we publish (and what we don't)

We publish:

• Product pages — describing our loan-matching service, eligibility, the application process, and the panel of lenders we work with.
• FAQs — answers to the questions applicants ask us most often.
• Guides — longer explanations of how short-term credit works in South Africa, including NCA rules, debt counselling, the Credit Ombud process, and how to read a pre-agreement quote.
• Blog posts — current topics in SA personal finance, with a slant towards short-term credit and how it interacts with the rest of a household budget.

We do not publish content designed to look like independent journalism that is in fact paid promotion of a specific lender. We do not run "best loans of 2026" rankings of our own panel. Where a post or guide is materially about a specific lender or product, we say so on the page and disclose the commercial relationship.

04Editorial independence vs commercial relationships

We are a free loan-matching service. Our revenue comes from referral fees paid by the lenders on our panel when a referral leads to a signed loan. That commercial relationship is not invisible to the editorial side. It would be dishonest to pretend it is.

Here is how we handle it:

• No lender on our panel can buy a more favourable mention. We do not accept payment for positive coverage.
• No lender on our panel reviews or approves editorial content before publication. They see what is published when readers do.
• If a piece is materially about a specific panel lender, the page carries a clear "About a panel lender" notice and a link back to this policy.
• We do not run paid "advertorial" pieces that look like editorial. If we ever did, they would be labelled "Sponsored" at the top of the page (see section 09).
• The affiliate model is disclosed on every page in the footer compliance note, on our Disclaimer page, and again here.

05Research and sourcing standards

Most of what we write is about South African credit law, products and processes. The standard for facts in those areas is:

• Primary sources first. The National Credit Act, gazetted regulations, the NCR website, the Information Regulator, the Credit Ombud, the Banking Association of South Africa, the FSCA. If a number comes from there, we cite there.
• Numbers are dated. NCA fee caps and interest caps change over time. We include the version of the regulation and the date we checked it.
• Lender-specific claims are sourced from the lender. Interest rates, fees, repayment terms and payout times for a specific lender come from that lender's published pre-agreement quote terms or T&Cs, not from our recollection.
• External media is for context, not authority. If we link to a news article, it is to support a wider point, not to establish a regulatory fact.
• Statistics get a source link. If we say "X% of South Africans use short-term credit," there is a footnote or inline link to a survey or official release. If we cannot find one, we do not publish the number.

06Use of AI tools

We use AI tools in our content workflow. We think pretending otherwise in 2026 is silly, and we would rather tell you how.

Specifically:

• AI may be used for first-pass research summarisation, draft writing, headline ideas, and grammar or readability suggestions.
• AI is not used as the sole source of any factual claim. Anything that looks like a fact (a regulation, a number, a date, a lender process) is verified against a primary source by a human reviewer before publication.
• Every published piece is reviewed and signed off by the Editorial Lead (or another named human reviewer). The byline is the person who reviewed and stands behind it.
• We do not currently publish AI-generated images of people or AI-generated quotes attributed to real people. Stock or original photography only for people images; quotes either come from named real sources or are removed.
• We will update this section if our use of AI changes materially. The current statement is dated above.

If you spot AI-style errors in something we have published — a wrong number, a made-up source, a hallucinated date — please tell us. Section 08 has the contact details. We treat those reports as urgent.

07Fact-checking and human review

Before a piece goes live, it is checked against this list:

• Every regulatory claim has a source (NCA section, gazette reference, NCR page, Credit Ombud page, etc.).
• Every number is dated and traceable.
• Every external link resolves and points to the page we say it does.
• Lender-specific terms (rates, fees, payout times) are reconciled against the lender's published materials, not just memory.
• The piece does not stray into personalised financial advice. If it gets close, we add a clear "this is general information, not advice for your situation" caveat.
• The byline is a real person who has read the piece and stands behind it.
• The publish date and a "Last reviewed" date are populated.

For long-running pages (FAQs, calculators, guides), the Editorial Lead schedules a full re-review at least every six months, and immediately whenever a relevant law or fee cap changes.

08Corrections, updates and date-stamps

We will make mistakes. When we do, we want to fix them visibly rather than quietly.

Our corrections process:

• If you spot an error, email [email protected]. We aim to acknowledge within 2 working days and resolve within 10.
• Material corrections (wrong figure, wrong law cited, wrong lender claim) are made on the page with a short "Correction note" at the bottom dated the day we changed it. We do not silently edit and pretend the original never existed.
• Minor edits (typo, broken link, rewording for clarity) are made silently. We do not flag every comma.
• Every page on the site shows when it was first published and when it was last reviewed. If a piece is more than six months old and we have not refreshed it, the date tells you.

If you believe we have published something defamatory or unlawful, please flag it through [email protected] as well as the editorial inbox so it is escalated.

09Sponsored vs editorial content

We do not currently accept paid placements that look like editorial. If that changes, the rules are simple and visible:

Affiliate referral fees from our panel lenders (the way the matching service is funded) are not sponsored content. They are disclosed separately in our Disclaimer and in section 04 above.

10No personalised financial advice

Our content provides general information about South African short-term credit. It does not provide personalised financial, credit, tax or legal advice for your specific situation.

If a piece looks like it is getting close to advice, we add a clear caveat that the reader should consult an FSCA-authorised financial adviser, an NCR-registered debt counsellor, or the Credit Ombud, depending on the question. We name those bodies and link to them.

We will not pretend to know enough about a specific reader's circumstances to recommend a specific loan amount, lender or term. That conversation belongs with the matched lender and, where appropriate, an independent adviser.

11Things we will not publish

A short list of editorial carve-outs we hold ourselves to:

• Ranked "best loans" or "best lenders" tables of our own panel members. Our model rewards us when any panel lender funds you, which makes us a structurally bad ranker of our own panel.
• Content that promises guaranteed approval or implies that any lender will definitely fund you.
• Content aimed at people who clearly cannot afford the loans we describe.
• Content that exploits financial distress for clicks — "desperate for cash today?" style hooks that nudge readers towards credit they should not take.
• Fake user reviews, fake testimonials, AI-generated quotes attributed to real or invented people, or stock-photo "customers" passed off as real customers.
• Reviews of products outside our area of competence. We write about short-term credit in South Africa. We do not review investment products, crypto, or anything else we are not qualified to comment on.

12Feedback & contact

Have spotted an error? Want to challenge something we wrote? Want to suggest a topic? Want a comment for a story?

• Editorial inbox: [email protected] (corrections, factual errors, story tips)
• Complaints: [email protected]
• Press: [email protected]
• Phone: 0860 INSTANT (0860 467 826), Mon–Fri 8am–6pm

The Editorial Lead reads the editorial inbox. The corrections SLA in section 08 applies. We answer with a real reply from a real person, not a templated acknowledgement that goes nowhere.