Private lending calculators for South Africa

Which one you need

The two calculators answer genuinely different questions, and the right one depends on what you want your capital to do rather than which return looks bigger.

• You want rands, and a return that tracks South African rates. The local calculator. Returns are prime-linked, so they rise and ease with the prime rate. There is no fixed term.
• You want capital out of the rand, at a rate fixed up front. The offshore calculator. Notes run three to five years in GBP, USD or EUR, at a rate that does not move — though the rand value does.

The local calculator

Enter an amount in rands and choose a single placement or a monthly contribution. The calculator reads the current South African prime rate — not a number typed in months ago — and shows the date it was set, so you can see exactly what the figure is built on.

The offshore calculator

Choose a currency, then enter what you have in rands. The calculator shows the hard-currency equivalent at a recent exchange rate, checks it against the note minimum, and compares the income and growth notes side by side.

Reading the output honestly

A calculator is a model, not a quote. Three things are worth holding in mind when you read one, and they apply to any private-lending calculator, not only ours.

• Prime-linked is not fixed. A local figure is correct at today's prime rate. When the Reserve Bank moves the repo rate, prime moves, and so does the return — up as well as down.
• An offshore rate is fixed; the rand is not. The interest a note pays is set. What it is worth back in rands depends on the exchange rate on the day, which nobody can forecast.
• Local lending has no maturity date. Capital returns as the underlying loans are repaid rather than on a set date, so a comparison period is a way of reading the return — not a term.