First victims of high interest rates

Increasingly more people are taken with the consumer lending fever: 128,135 persons were logged in late October with delays of more than 30 days in paying the instalments for some credits worth up to 200 million ROL. Moreover, the number of loans with payment delays has climbed to 153,171, which shows that certain banking customers are lagging behind with payments for as many as two loans, according to data centralised by the National Bank.

Although the number of late payers does not seem a cause for concern, it has gone up rather quickly, climbing almost 19% between August-October. The total number of loans that are no longer being paid in due time has risen 24% during the same interval.

The total amount of due payments is still insignificant, amounting to a little more than 14 million euros, but its evolution points to an overestimated reimbursement capacity of those that have mainly contracted loans to buy durables. Thus, in only three months’ time, the amounts that failed to be paid back, even after a one-month delay, posted a 48.6% surge.

Moreover, banks had to bid farewell to a third of the total granted funds, as the respective loans were written off. Losses tend to swell, given that another 37% of the unpaid sums are more than three months due, without any possibility of being recovered.

Most consumer loans that have been contracted and left unpaid are ROL-denominated. And this could account for the rapid growth of unpaid sums, considering that interests linked to this type of loans have been flying high, even though the real size of costs has been concealed behind aggressive advertising campaigns. razvan.voican@zf.ro