Russian bailiffs canceled physical persons' bad debts in the amount of about 2.2 trillion rubles to banks, the Izvestia newspaper reported with reference to Russia's Federal Bailiffs Service.
In 2017, bailiffs were not able to recover 2.2 trillion rubles of the debts, so 16.9 million executive proceedings have been canceled. The main reason for debt cancellation is the impossibility of collecting debts.
In 2016, 14.3 million executive proceedings (1.9 trillion rubles) have been canceled and in 2017, bailiffs planned to cancel physical persons' bad debts in the amount of about 1 trillion rubles to banks, Vestnik Kavkaza reported.
Thus, on average, last year, 130177.51 rubles were wrote off in one case. Accordingly, in 2016, the average bad debt in one case was 132867.13 rubles.
Russia's Federal Bailiffs Service explained that the increase in canceling bad debts of Russians is associated with an increase in lending and a decline in real incomes of the population last year.
The vice-rector of the Academy of Labour and Social Relations Alexander Safonov, speaking to a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that 2.2 trillion rubles of "forgiven" debts are really a significant amount of loss for the financial system. "It is easy to estimate the scale of it if we compare these 2.2 trillion rubles with the transfer of the federal budget to the pension system, which amounted to 3 trillion rubles this year. If these funds entered the budget, it would be possible to remove all discussions about raising the retirement age. As a rule, citizens' tax debts are mainly debts entering the budget system of municipalities and subjects of the Russian Federation," he said.
"As you know, the government, in order to support the fulfillment of presidential decrees on wages, transferred grants in the amount of 20 billion rubles to the regions last year - compare them with 2.2 trillion rubles. If such money were paid by citizens in the Russian regions with high unemployment, low wages and incomes, it would be possible to close the regions' need for assistance from the federal center and substantially improve the financial system by eliminating the credit crunch of the entities of the Russian Federation. It shows one thing - the people have no money even to pay taxes," Alexander Safonov pointed out.
The problem of debt overburden of the population, which need a loan after loan, has not disappeared. "First of all, this problem is created due to micro-loans, the total amount of such debts is about 1.5 trillion rubles, due to the fact that interest on microloans is very high. Up to 70% of loans on microloans are an attempt to roll over their debt," the vice-rector of the Academy of Labour and Social Relations concluded.
The advisor on macroeconomics to the CEO of the 'Opening-Broker' brokerage house, economist Sergey Hestanov, in turn, drew attention to the fact that these financial losses are extremely unevenly spread. "If we are talking about banks, then they have a small amount of irrevocable financial losses. But in such a sector as microlenders, there are not enough reliable statistics, so even this figure is not easy to assess. These 2.2 trillion rubles is a significant number and is comparable to 10% of the money that citizens keep on deposits," he said.
"In practice, this is a significant amount of money that suggests that Russia's regulation of debt collection is much worse than those of many other countries. In most developed countries, there are radically fewer cases when debts cannot be recovered and they are classed as bad ones," Sergei Hestanov explained.
"In general, the situation, when it was not possible to recover debts of 16.9 million debtors in a year, is characterized as moderately unfavorable. This figure indicates the need to work seriously with the debt collection mechanism. The more effective these mechanisms are, the more accessible loans for bona fide borrowers will be," the advisor on macroeconomics to the CEO of the 'Opening-Broker' brokerage house summarized.
