In the first half of the year, Poles took fewer loans than a year ago. The drops concerned all products - the largest concerned credit cards, cash loans and non-bank loans. Home and installment loans were the mildest in the crisis.

"In the second half of the year, we expect a rebound in each category, but this will not compensate for the losses so far," Dr. Mariusz Cholewa, president of the Credit Information Bureau, said.

Importantly, the repayment of loans also deteriorated, both among individual clients and entrepreneurs.

The first half of 2020 was a difficult period for the credit market. Poles took PLN 31 billion of housing loans and in this category there was the smallest decrease, i.e. by 0.4 percent compared to the first half of 2019. Cash loans, on the other hand, were PLN 25 billion and this is a decrease of over 30 percent compared to the previous year. In turn, installment loans were granted by banks in amount of PLN 6.5 billion and there is a decrease by less than 6 percentage points. The biggest drops in value were noticeable in two categories: credit cards (by 41.6 percent) and non-bank loans (by 35.7 percent).

The pace of declines was differently distributed in particular periods of the first half of the year. While the first two months brought a very positive result, already March, the first month of the coronavirus pandemic in Poland, shook sales in each of the credit and loan categories, and the drops amounted to several dozen percent.

"After the first half of the year, we can see that the credit risk is growing. The group of individual customers and entrepreneurs who stop paying off their loans is larger. BIK, the BIK Quality Index of the cash loans portfolio, presented by us, achieved a record 7 percentage points. Only in June, the value of such loans, which were overdue by more than 90 days, amounted to approximately PLN 700 million. We have not observed such amounts for a long time," Cholewa said.

The ratios for other loan categories also deteriorated. While the loss ratio for housing and installment loans remains low (0.86% and 2.14%, respectively), it is worrying in the case of cash loans and credit cards (6.67% and 4.61%, respectively). ). Importantly, some borrowers take advantage of credit holidays, so only at the end of the year it will be possible to fully assess the impact of the pandemic on debt repayments.

(Newseria) https://biznes.newseria.pl/news/kredyty-gotowkowe-w,p210093006