The Financial Superintendency has expressed concern regarding the accelerated rate at which credit card debt is growing among Colombians. According to the entity, by May 2022, purchases made with these instruments reached $7.9 trillion and grew 45% compared to the same month last year.
According to the report of the supervisory body, in May 2021, purchases with the cards totaled $4.9 billion and the number of transactions year on year increased 42.2%. Likewise, the Official data indicates that the amount owed in consumer loans amounted to $197.9 billion in May and grew 21.7%.
In line with this, Hernando José Gómez, president of Asobancaria, affirmed that “It’s time to start moderating the growth of the portfolio, especially the consumerthat is the message that the Banco de la República has sent us, which has increased its rates from 1.75% to 9%, that is a message from the bank saying: moderate credit.
Credit institutions are being asked to measure disbursements because, from the point of view of the experts, allowing households and individuals to become over-indebted might lead to future problems, since it might reduce the liquidity that financial institutions can inject into the economy.
For now, according to Gómez, “households are not over-indebted and at this time the figures are between 30% and 32% in the debt burden. Normally, we are only considered to enter a danger zone when we are at 40%.”
However, he agreed with the Financial Superintendent and stated that the pace of disbursements must be reduced “so that in no way are we going to cross that threshold of 40%, which is the maximum reasonable.”
“This is going to lead to banks moderate the placement of consumer loanswhich reached more than 20% and will most likely converge towards the general growth rate, which will be around 12% this year”, pointed out the union leader.
