Back in 2014, after some reports of reckless lending and the sudden exit of senior management, African Bank collapsed.
In the process of rescuing the sinking ship, the bank was split into “old” African Bank also called Residual Debt Service Limited and “new” African bank (which had the same branding, same offices, same staff).
Most of the good debts that people were actually paying each month were moved to the “new” African Bank, leaving RDS with some of the less reliable and bad debts.
At the time, RDS set aside R500 million as insurance money.