Governance

How the Association is constituted

The Private Lending Association of South Africa was constituted on 17 September 2026 under its founding constitution (PLA-GOV-001, version 1.0). Its founding members are ProLend as an organisational member, Wesley Thomson as an individual member and Peter Thomson as an individual member.

The Association is not a statutory body, regulator, accreditation authority, government agency or government-recognised professional body. It is a voluntary association with legal personality separate from its members, established for the public benefit and not for the financial gain of its members.

The constitution establishes a Council as the management committee, the offices of chairperson, secretary and treasurer, a Standards and Verification Committee, and the role of Independent Reviewer. The office bearers and Council members appointed under it are recorded in the founding members’ resolution; an Independent Reviewer has not yet been appointed, and until one is, connected-party decisions are taken by the Council and published with the basis and the connection stated on the record.

Relationship with ProLend

Editor’s disclosure: The author is Managing Partner of ProLend, the commercial private-lending platform that supported the establishment of the Association and is its Founding Gold Partner. That interest is disclosed on every article he writes.

Who decides what, now

Editorial content

The editor decides what is published and when it is reviewed, under the editorial policy. No partner approves copy, and material unflattering to the asset class is published as written.

Standards and methodology

Drafted by the editor and published for comment. They are explicitly provisional until reviewed by people who do not depend on this market.

Verification decisions

Taken by the Council against the published methodology, and published as a record rather than a badge: what was checked, against what evidence, what does not apply, what remains open, and when the record is next reviewed. One organisation has been verified — the Founding Gold Partner’s record — and it is a connected party, so the connection is stated on the record and the decision goes to the Independent Reviewer for re-examination on appointment. Every listed practitioner remains Verification Pending.

Listings and corrections

The editor maintains the registers and corrects them on request. Anyone may challenge a listing at complaints@privatelendingassociation.co.za.

Membership

The founding constitution provides for five classes of member: founding members; practitioner members, being individuals who present private-lending arrangements to the public; organisation members; associate members, being professionals with an interest in the Association’s objects; and honorary members. Each member other than an honorary member has one vote, irrespective of class, subscription paid, partnership tier or contribution made.

Applications open once the Council has adopted an admissions process, and the terms will be published here before anyone is admitted. Membership indicates participation in the Association; it is not a verification, and it is not an endorsement of anyone’s business. Partnership does not constitute regulatory approval or automatic verification under the Association's verification framework.

Founding documents

The Association is governed by the following documents. Redacted copies of the constitution and the founding resolution are available from the Secretary on request; signatures, identity numbers, residential addresses and private contact details are never published.

The published documents are the standards, the verification methodology, the code of conduct, the complaints procedure and the editorial policy.

Funding and commercial separation

• The Association is funded by ProLend as Founding Gold Partner.
• No advertising is carried and nothing is sold.
• No charge is made for a listing, an entry in a register or a link.
• No commission, referral fee or payment of any kind is received for an enquiry, introduction or placement.
• Partnership tiers are commercial; verification statuses are not, and a tier cannot produce one. That separation is enforced in the code as well as in policy — a tier is never stored as a property of a verification record.

Conflicts of interest

The central conflict is disclosed above and under the byline of every article the editor writes. The working rules that follow from it:

1. Every article discloses the editor’s interest, not only this page.
2. No page recommends a partner. Pages answer the reader’s question and name a partner only where it genuinely helps, and the editorial policy sets the test: would this page be credible with the partner’s name removed?
3. Comparisons include the cases where private lending is the weaker option. Where it is, the page says so.
4. A verification decision on a related party is taken by the Council against the published criteria, published with the connection disclosed on the record, and referred to the Independent Reviewer for re-examination once one is appointed.

What is in place, and what is still to come

The constitution is adopted and the standards, methodology, code and procedures are published under it. Four things remain outstanding, and the Association will not describe itself as independent, as a professional body or as an accreditation authority until they are done.

1. An independent review capacity — at least one person with no commercial interest in this market, able to review verification decisions and to overturn them.
2. A conflicts register published on this page, naming every interest held by anyone who takes a decision.
3. A funding base beyond a single partner, so that no one organisation can end the Association by withdrawing support.
4. A complaints process with a decision-maker who is not the editor.

Progress against that list will be reported on this page with dates, and the absence of a date means the item has not been done.

Common questions

Is the Association independent?

Not yet, and it does not claim to be. It was established with the support of ProLend, its Founding Gold Partner, and the person who edits its material is Managing Partner of ProLend. The Association will describe itself as independent when an independent governance structure exists and can be pointed to — not before.

Who runs the Association?

At present the editorial and standards work is carried out by the named editor, with operational support from ProLend. There is no board, no council and no committee, and none is claimed. The structure that has to be built before verification decisions can be taken is set out on this page.

How is the Association funded?

By ProLend, its Founding Gold Partner. The site carries no advertising, sells nothing, charges nothing for a listing and receives no commission or referral fee for an introduction to any organisation or practitioner.

Questions about governance: info@privatelendingassociation.co.za