On income and holidays – Newspaper Kommersant No. 173 (7374) dated 09/20/2022

Next week, the state program of credit holidays for citizens expires. The Ministry of Finance and deputies have already raised the issue of its extension. But in the ministry they are only talking about six months, and in the State Duma they are talking about making the holidays indefinite with the expansion of conditions. The Central Bank and the largest banks agree that the program should become permanent, but experts consider it necessary to raise its limits.

The Ministry of Finance published regulation.gov.ru draft resolution on extending the credit holiday program for citizens (expires September 30) until March 31, 2023. At the same time, a bill submitted by Anatoly Aksakov, head of the financial market committee, and a number of other deputies, appeared in the electronic database of the State Duma. They propose to make vacations for consumer loans permanent (as for mortgages). The limits, according to the deputies, will amount to 150 thousand rubles for credit cards, 1.6 million rubles for car loans, and 450 thousand rubles for all other consumer loans.

As the Central Bank explained to Kommersant, practice shows that banks often meet borrowers halfway, but it is very important when a citizen has a legally enshrined right to receive a deferment. “In general, this year we saw a lower demand for restructuring from citizens than during the pandemic,” the Bank of Russia said. According to him, in just March-August, banks restructured 694.3 thousand loans to citizens for 333.8 billion rubles, of which, according to the law on credit holidays (106-FZ), 98.6 thousand loans for 44.7 billion rubles, according to the law on mortgage holidays (353-FZ) – 5.2 thousand loans for 17.6 billion rubles, the rest – under their own programs.

The largest banks agree on the need to introduce credit holidays on an ongoing basis. “The vacation mechanism has already been used by the state several times and has shown its effectiveness as a measure to support citizens who find themselves in a difficult financial situation,” they say in Sberbank. However, they believe that it is reasonable to give the borrower the right to credit holidays “once for the entire life cycle of the loan”, and not two, as suggested by the deputies. VTB also considers it expedient “to have a permanent tool to support borrowers.”

“Back in October 2020, the Central Bank’s Expert Council proposed adopting a law and giving the opportunity to always apply for a vacation,” says Elman Mehdiyev, deputy chairman of the council. “Let’s hope that deputies will be able to adopt such a law in the autumn session and it will come into force on January 1.” The Ministry of Finance did not respond to a request about the advisability of introducing indefinite holidays and changing the parameters of the program.

Experts agree that limits need to be adjusted. Thus, a member of the central headquarters of the ONF, Yevgenia Lazareva, is sure that the limits should be adjusted based on the balance, and not the full amount of the debt.

“One of the most important parameters is the threshold values ​​of loans,” adds Ruslan Mukhomedzhanov, an expert in the practice of advising on the financial market at Technology of Trust, for example. grew in line with inflation… Low thresholds could cut off a significant proportion of borrowers.”

“Raising the limits looks appropriate and is likely to increase demand from the population during the legislative holidays,” says Valery Piven, senior director of ACRA, stating that at the same time, it remains a logical question whether the level of approval of applications from banks will increase.

Ksenia Dementieva, Polina Trifonova