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Published: February 15th, 2017

The amount of debt of the individuals with late payment for a period of one day increased by 13%. Polytika.ru found that the highest rate of growth of overdue debts are observed in Kalmykia (plus 108%), the Jewish territory (plus 47%), Khakassia (plus 31%) and Zabaykalsky Krai (plus 27%).

In 2015, this figure compared to the previous year showed an even more significant increase — 49 percent. However, the "slowing downs" in this case is not a reason for optimism. The amount of "bad" debts with overdue payments for more than 90 days in the current year increased by 13%, reaching the amount of 1.26 trillion rubles.

Vyacheslav Kurilin, the author of the social project "Stop! Collector" stated that the Russians are taking new loans to pay old debts. The greatest part of the Russians, making such loans, are well aware that they can not repay the debt . "In particular, we take microloans at high interest rates," said Kurilin. The reason for such action is the pressure of collectors or the fear of losing housing, often taken out a mortgage.

The leading researcher of the Institute of RAS Sergey Smirnov believes that the decline in income of the population is the reason for the growth of the debt of individuals. One of the most important factors reducing income Smirnov considers the reduction in real pensions and their inadequate indexing. While debt reduction cannot be expected this trend will continue for a very long time.

The expert believes that the debt flow depends on the general economic situation. And the law on bankruptcy of natural persons has not had a significant impact on the final figures of debt. In the near future, the government and banks will not expect any significant reforms in the credit policy.

The analyst of "Finam" Timur Nigmatullin says: "the main driver of growth is a consumer lending segment, while mortgage loans are a decrease of defaults. The delay in the consumer segment, obviously, was the result of lower incomes. By the end of 2016, the income decreased, and at an accelerating pace: in December, the decline was greater than the average for the year. At the same time, interest rates on loans if declined, it is not essential. This led to the fact that many beneficiaries are unable at some time to service its debt just due to the fact that the structure of their costs was not enough money for consumption".

Predicting the development of the situation in 2017, Nigmatullin noted that great importance will be the ratio of income of the population and the size of interest on loans. "If revenues continue to fall, but the key rate of the Central Bank decrease, after its reduced interest rates on loans. Then probably the delay will be reduced. If the rate remain unchanged or decrease insignificantly, and real incomes will continue to decline, it is obvious that the tendency of growth of delay, at least in the consumer segment, will remain", — says the analyst.

The Director of the Institute of globalization problems Mikhail Delyagin believes that the actual debt of Russians on loans can be greater than banks declare . "Last year, when real incomes continued to fall and real consumption also continued to fall, the arrears on loans grew by only 13%, it is a very good result, given the current economic situation. We can assume then that this is an evidence of the high integrity of Russian citizens-borrowers. However, I fear that the Russian banks will use some tools to understate this figure so as not to impair the view of their financial situation, not to worsen their image," — said Delyagin.

Elena Fasahova, the Chairman of the public Association "Agency of protection of the rights of consumers of financial services", drew attention to the fact that over time there is an increasing number of appeals of physical persons for legal assistance in connection with the impossibility of repayment of loans. Fasahova also believes that the insolvency of individuals is paralleled by the growth of debt from small businesses: "small businesses have problems because of the reduction of profitableness from business activities and, as a result, the impossibility of the fulfillment of loan obligations appropriately."

Source: polytika.ru