Standards
Code of conduct
Eight clauses, written as things a person can be held to rather than values a brochure can claim. Each one exists because its absence is a recurring cause of harm in this market.
Adopted
Adopted by the founding members on 17 September 2026 under the Association’s constitution (PLA-GOV-001), and maintained under it. Amendments are recorded with the date of the resolution that made them.
This code sits alongside the standards, which describe what an organisation or practitioner must show to be listed. The standards are checked at a point in time; this code describes conduct expected continuously, between checks, when nobody is looking.
PLA-STD-002 · version 1.1 · 8 clauses, 28 rules · cite as “PLA-STD-002 cl 5.1”
How to read this
Every rule carries a number, so that a finding, a complaint or an assessment question can point at it precisely. Every rule also carries a reason, because a rule whose purpose is not stated cannot be applied to a situation its drafter did not foresee — and almost every real situation is one nobody foresaw.
What the markings mean
- Critical
- A single established breach is grounds to suspend or withdraw a listing, whatever else is in order. Answered wrongly, this alone fails the assessment.
- Major
- Requires an explanation and a correction. An unremedied or repeated breach becomes grounds to withdraw a listing. Counts towards the pass mark. Several wrong answers fail it.
- Standard
- Expected practice. A lapse is recorded and corrected rather than sanctioned. Counts towards the pass mark.
1. Honesty in everything shown to the public
Most avoidable loss in this market begins with a sentence that was not true when it was written.
1.1Critical
No material describes a private-lending return as guaranteed, risk-free, secure or capital-protected.
A fixed rate is the price of the loan, not a promise that the capital returns. These four words move a lender's expectation from a risk they accepted to a certainty they were sold.
1.2Major
No projection is presented as an expectation, and every illustration is labelled as an illustration.
An unlabelled projection is read as a forecast, and a forecast is read as a commitment. The label is what keeps a modelled number in the category the reader should hold it in.
1.3Major
No claim of being the largest, the best or the first is made without evidence a reader can check.
Superlatives substitute for the track record a new or unaudited operation cannot show, and the reader has no way to test them.
1.4Major
Past outcomes, where mentioned, are not offered as an indication of future ones.
A book of loans that has not yet defaulted is a book that has not yet been tested through a downturn, not a book that does not default.
2. Clarity about who you are and what you do
A lender who cannot name the party that owes them money cannot enforce against anybody.
2.1Critical
The legal entity, its registration number and its role in the transaction are stated in writing before capital moves.
Recovery runs against a legal person. A trading name on a brochure is not one, and the time to establish which entity is on the other side is before the money leaves, not during a dispute.
2.2Major
Where a registration is required for the role, the number is published and can be checked on a public register.
Registration is a matter of public record. An operation that treats its own number as confidential has answered a different question from the one asked.
2.3Major
The party that holds the capital, the party that grants the credit and the party that administers repayment are each identified, even where they are the same entity.
These three roles carry different duties and fail in different ways. Collapsing them into one name hides which of them a lender is actually exposed to.
2.4Critical
A lender is told before their loan, or their rights in it, is sold, ceded or transferred to another party.
A cession changes who owes the lender and who they must enforce against. Learning about it afterwards, or on default, removes any chance of objecting while objecting was still possible.
3. Risk explained as clearly as return
The rate is the easy half of the sentence, and it is rarely the half that is omitted.
3.1Critical
Any material quoting a rate also explains what the capital is exposed to and on what the return of capital depends.
A number on its own invites comparison with a deposit rate, which is the one comparison that is never like for like.
3.2Major
The absence of deposit insurance is stated plainly wherever a comparison with a bank is invited.
A reader who has only ever held money at a bank imports the protections of a bank. Nothing in a private loan supplies them, and the assumption has to be corrected explicitly.
3.3Major
Illiquidity is described in concrete terms: whether there is an exit, on what terms, and how long capital is realistically committed.
"Medium term" and "typically" are not terms a lender can plan around. The question is whether the money can be had back on a date, and the honest answer is usually no.
4. Suitability before numbers
The rate is what makes someone want the arrangement. Their circumstances are what determine whether they should have it.
4.1Major
Circumstances are discussed before a rate is quoted.
Once a number is in the room the conversation is about how to get it, not about whether it is appropriate. The order is the safeguard.
4.2Critical
Where an arrangement is plainly unsuitable — capital that is needed back on a date, or a person's only capital — that is said, and the conversation stops.
This is the rule that costs money to follow, which is exactly why it is in the code. An illiquid loan funded with money that has a date on it fails for certain, and the failure is foreseeable at the outset.
4.3Major
Nobody is told that private lending is a substitute for an emergency fund.
An emergency fund's only property is that it is available on the day it is needed, which is the one property this asset class cannot offer.
5. No pressure
Urgency is not a feature of lending arrangements. It is a feature of how some of them are sold.
5.1Critical
No closing dates, limited allocations, expiring rates or other urgency devices.
Time pressure exists to prevent the checks a careful person would otherwise run. A genuine arrangement survives being examined for a week.
5.2Major
A person who says they want to think about it is left to think about it.
Following up on a stated hesitation converts a considered decision into a pressured one.
5.3Major
Nothing is signed in a first meeting that could not be signed a week later.
Nothing in a private loan genuinely requires same-day signature. Where a signature is pressed for on the day, the reason is on the other side of the table.
6. Disclosure of interest
What the person advising you is paid changes what they advise, whether or not they intend it to.
6.1Critical
Commission, fees and who pays them are disclosed before an introduction and confirmed in writing on request.
Payment received for placing business is the interest most likely to bend a recommendation, and disclosure after the introduction is disclosure after it has done its work.
6.2Major
Any relationship with a platform, provider or administrator that could affect what is recommended is disclosed.
Ownership, exclusivity and referral arrangements shape which options a person is shown at all. What is never mentioned cannot be weighed.
6.3Critical
Partnership with the Association is disclosed, and never presented as an endorsement or a verification.
A partnership is a commercial arrangement and is bought. A verification is a finding and cannot be. Allowing the first to be read as the second would make everything the Association publishes worthless.
6.4Critical
The total of all fees, commissions and charges that reduce the lender's return is disclosed as a figure or a rate, not only as a list of their names.
Each fee disclosed separately is each fee disclosed honestly and the total still concealed. A lender told fourteen per cent who receives nine has been given accurate information and a false impression.
7. Proper process
The obligations that apply whether or not anyone asks about them.
7.1Major
Where the party is an accountable institution, risk-based customer due diligence under FICA is applied, and a client who is not asked for identification where it should apply is entitled to ask why.
Identity checks are a legal duty for accountable institutions, and their unexplained absence is one of the more reliable signals that something else is wrong.
7.2Major
Personal information is handled under POPIA, and used for the purpose it was given.
Financial information handed over to assess one arrangement is routinely reused to market others. The purpose it was given for is the limit.
7.3Standard
Records are kept of what was shown, what was said and what was sent.
Every disputed sale comes down to what was represented. Without a record the dispute is decided on whose account is more confident.
8. Cooperation when something goes wrong
How a party behaves after a problem is the better test of the two.
8.1Major
Complaints are acknowledged, investigated and answered.
A complaint that goes unanswered becomes a loss the complainant absorbs privately, which is the outcome an unanswered complaint is designed to produce.
8.2Major
Where a listing on this site is in question, the subject cooperates with the Association's review.
A register is only as good as the willingness of its entries to be checked. Refusal to engage is itself information about the entry.
8.3Major
Errors in published material are corrected promptly and visibly.
A correction nobody sees does not reach the people who acted on the error.
8.4Critical
Where a stated exit, redemption or repayment date cannot be met, the lender is told promptly and told why, rather than discovering it on the date.
A lender who knows early can plan around the shortfall. A lender who finds out on the day has lost both the money and every option they had for managing without it.
What the Association can do about a breach
It can ask for an explanation, record the matter, correct what it publishes, and change or withdraw a listing — recording the change as suspended or expired rather than deleting it, because a record that quietly disappears tells a reader nothing.
It cannot fine anyone, order redress, compel evidence or stop anyone from trading. Those powers belong to regulators and to the courts, and complaints and review names the bodies that hold them.
Common questions
- Who does this code apply to?
- Organisations and practitioners who are listed by the Association, or who apply to be. It is not law and the Association cannot enforce it beyond what it publishes: the sanction available is to record a breach, to change or withdraw a listing, and to say so. Legal obligations under the National Credit Act, FAIS, FICA and POPIA apply regardless of this code.
- What happens if someone breaches the code?
- It is handled under the complaints and review process. The Association can ask for an explanation, correct what it publishes, record the matter, and change or withdraw a listing. It cannot fine anyone, order compensation or compel evidence, and it says so rather than implying powers it does not have.
- Why is every rule numbered?
- So that it can be cited. A finding, a complaint, an assessment question and a member's undertaking all have to point at the same rule and mean the same thing by it. Numbers are permanent: a rule that is withdrawn is marked withdrawn rather than deleted, and its number is never reissued.
- Are all the rules weighted equally?
- No. Each rule is marked Critical, Major or Standard. Describing a return as guaranteed is not the same kind of failure as filing a record badly, and a code that treats them alike is unenforceable in practice. 10 of the 28 rules are Critical: a single established breach of one of those is grounds to suspend or withdraw a listing.
This page explains how something works. It is not financial, legal or tax advice, it takes no account of your circumstances, and nothing here is a recommendation to lend. Private lending places capital at risk.