Interest Rate Change for Employer Loans

The South African Reserve Bank has decided to increase the repurchase rate (repo rate) by 25 basis points, effective from 23 November 2018.

The official interest rate used for calculating the fringe benefit on low or interest free loans to employees is set as 100 basis points above the repo rate. This means that the interest rate used for calculating the fringe benefit on employer loans increases from 7.5% to 7.75%, effective 23 November 2018.

If you’re a SimplePay user, you do not need to take any action to implement the new interest rate, as we have already updated our system to reflect these changes. Therefore, all payslips dated and finalised from 23 November onwards will use the new interest rate. If a payslip dated after 23 November was finalised before the 23 November (i.e. it was finalised in advance), you will need to unfinalise the payslip and then finalise it again for the changes to take effect. As we have built our system to be intuitive, the previous interest rate will be used if you are still preparing payslips dated before the 23 November, regardless of what date you physically finalise the payslip.

If you are unsure of how to capture employee loans or calculate the fringe benefit on them, refer to our help page here.

Team SimplePay