The “credit consciousness” of borrowers in Russia has fallen to its lowest level since 2020

The credit awareness index has been falling since the fourth quarter of 2023 and has lost 0.27 points since then. This drop was the longest of all measurements, since 2011. In the third quarter of 2024, the index fell 0.06 points.

According to the general director of the Scoring Office, Oleg Lagutkin, the index is declining due to the increase in late payments and the deterioration in the return of clients to payment schedules. At the end of August, the number of overdue agreements on unsecured loans amounted to 6.2 million, at the end of 2023 it was 5.4 million.

Marketing Director of the National Credit History Bureau Alexey Volkov noted that during the period of high rates, clients “of not very high credit quality, often in urgent need of borrowed funds,” remain on the market. . High-quality borrowers, on the other hand, expect and use a pattern of savings behavior.

Data from the Bank of Russia show that at the end of August, the volume of overdue debt on loans to individuals amounted to 1.6 trillion rubles, and the share of “bad” debts in the total retail portfolio is 4.1% .

• Russian banks are increasingly rejecting unsecured consumer loans. At the end of September, the approval level fell to 34.4%, while in August it was 35.3%.
• One in two borrowers in Russia has problems repaying their loans.
• In early October, the Russian State Duma approved in first reading a bill prohibiting banks from unilaterally increasing the limit on credit cards.