• The latest Audited Financial Statements
• A budget for the relevant year
• A proposal letter stipulating how the funds would be utilised
• If the body is not part of a denominational member of CDTF, we would require the constitution.
• It is the responsibility of the applicant to establish from their governing bodies if they require permission from the denomination to apply for a loan.

At our discretion, we might accept Financials that have not been audited by a Registered Auditor. The Financials must have been independently reviewed and must disclose:

• All assets and an indication of any encumbrances.
• All liabilities and the payment terms of them.
• All future commitments and the manner in which they will be funded.
• Any contingent liabilities and the circumstances pertaining to them.

To achieve this, we have put a few guidelines in place.

• • The members of CDTF are the member churches of the South African Council of Churches.
  • Generally, we only provide loans to congregations of our members or established ecumenical organisations. We certainly never provide loans to break-away groups.
  • We are obliged to comply with the National Credit Act and other applicable legislation, e.g. Financial Intelligence Centre Act. 
  • In terms of the National Credit Act we are obliged to ensure that the borrower is able to repay the loan on our standard terms and conditions.  Therefore, we study past financial statements (normally audited), management accounts and future budgets. We may also require independent valuations.
  • Our loans at present carry an interest rate of 8,5% p.a. and are for a period of 60 months (this requires a monthly repayment including capital and interest of R21 for each R1000 advanced).
  • We lend on a secured basis and normally register first mortgage bonds over the property offered as security (this is normally the property which is being acquired and/or improved).
  • The constitution documents of the borrower are carefully checked to ensure the power and capacity to borrow without restriction, and/or whether permission from members of a congregation in general meeting or that of a controlling body, is required.
  • As a general rule, we do not provide 100% of the cost of the property.  Loan-to-value ratios are, however, flexible depending on circumstances and other security that may be offered, e.g., suretyships by a “mother church” where congregations are the actual borrowers.
  • Generally, we do not need to prioritise loans, but if we did, we would prefer a project that includes a health or educational component.
  • Our mission is to support churches and ecumenical organisations in proclaiming the Gospel; therefore, we need to ensure that our loans are clearly focused on our mission.