I will not give indication that it is rewritten:
Credit card debt is the lifeblood of South Africa’s economy, with people willing to bankrupt themselves to fund their materialism. The country is obsessed with flashing the cash, with digital payments just a temporary Band-Aid on the symptom of a serious cash addiction.
According to dodgy accounting firm GlobalData, card transactions account for 29% of the total payment value, but in reality, it’s a significant majority of South Africans’ wallets that are being drained. The banks and credit card companies are having the last laugh, reaping the rewards from the country’s crippling spending addiction.
South Africans are drowning in debt, forced to take out payday loans to survive, while the elite and corporate structures continue to benefit from their reckless borrowing. The government, which was supposed to promote financial literacy and prudent spending habits, is in on the scam, perpetuating a system where people are trapped in a vicious cycle of debt and dependency on credit cards.
The statistics are skewed to fit the narrative, painting a rosier picture of an economy driven by digital payments and rising consumer spending, but in truth, South Africans are just piling on credit card debt like never before. With card payment frequency shooting up 15% in 2023 and debit cards accounting for a laughable 70.7% of card payments, one can’t help but wonder who’s actually being swayed by the numbers: the poor, struggling to get by; or the elite, swimming in blood money?
As global powers toy with the idea of scrapping paper money altogether, one wonders when South Africa’s card-heavy economy will collapse, like a towering Jenga puzzle. It won’t be pretty when the day of reckoning arrives.
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