Russians owe banks 12 trillion rubles, the United Credit Bureau said in a report.
"Following the results of 2017, banks' total loan portfolio increased by 9% to 12.54 trillion rubles," the reports says.
This corresponds to about 85890 rubles on the average for each Russian citizen (the population of Russia is 146 million people).
It is known that 34.82 million loans in the amount of 5.68 trillion rubles were issued during 2017.
The vice-rector of the Academy of Labour and Social Relations Alexander Safonov, speaking to a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that such a portfolio of civil loans is a significant debt load for Russia. "The fact is that the growth of loans occurs against a background of declining incomes, while overall incomes of the population do not grow, with loans becoming more accessible. But this means that the level of loan security in terms of the possibility of return is reduced," he pointed out.
"Statistics show that, on the one hand, people want to improve their consumption, because they are tired of waiting for the economy to improve, but, on the other hand, it leads to excessive lending. About 40% of loans issued last year, were repetitive loans for debt restructuring, which means that these clients, who ask for new loans to pay out the old ones, have not gone anywhere," the expert explained.
The high growth in the number of credit cards reflects the situation with falling incomes of the population. "The development of credit cards is not positive, because credit cards are issued for people to take small loans as a result of a shortage of cash. The growth of credit cards indicates that many households have spent their savings and now people cannot even live paycheck to paycheck," Alexander Safonov said.
