• Consumption: 'revolving' cards encourage a new wave of claims against banks

Mall. A person walks quietly between stores when suddenly a commercial agent assaults her to offer her a credit card. It is easy to obtain, with hardly any waiting time and with the possibility of having the money without delays. The interests? There is the key .

It is likely that many people recognize this scene that is often repeated in shopping centers and surfaces. Behind it is a large part of the proliferation of revolving cards, that is, payment cards that are mainly used to finance consumer payments, with credit lines of up to 5,000 or 6,000 euros that are amortized deferred, in installments with their corresponding interests. These interests move between 20% -30% , compared to 7% -11% of the average interest established by the Bank of Spain for loans of these characteristics; This lag led the Supreme Court to talk about "usury" and has stirred up a wave of claims against the entities.

Where many families saw a quick way to obtain easy financing there was, in fact, the gateway to an almost perpetual debt . "The eternal payment," they call it at the Banking Products Negotiating Agency , "that is, it never ends up being paid because it does not begin to pay off and all that is paid is interest." In the agency they say that they have more and more claims from families with serious difficulties arising from this type of products.

Their numbers support it: the specific weight of revolving cards in total consumer credit debts of those requesting a regrouping has grown from 11% in 2017 to 14% in 2018 and 21% only so far of 2019. 10% in less than two years . Why? "Because it is very easy to get," they sentence. The B side of that simplicity is in the interests they demand, since it is the most expensive credit in the market; more than consumer loans to use and much more than mortgages, the most common type of loan.

The agency, which acts as a credit mediator before the financial institutions to negotiate the regrouping of debts of its clients, also points out that not only the cases rise, but also the average amount that families pay for revolving cards, which has passed 5,000 euros in 2017 at the current 7,000 euros .

More consumer credit

All these data are framed within the rapid increase in consumer credit in the last two years. The recovery of the economy and employment has injected confidence in the system and has encouraged households to resume the purchase of goods such as appliances, furniture or cars, which were halted during the crisis. To this is added the wide offer by the entities that, with interest rates at historical lows, have found in this type of loans a way to offset the low profitability of the other branches of the business.

The result is an increase in consumer credit of over 40% since 2015, according to data from the Bank of Spain. The evolution has caused the regulator to launch a message of caution to the entities. The governor, Pablo Hernández de Cos , has asked the bank to tighten the conditions for granting personal loans due to the rise in delinquency.

In this line, the latest Survey on Bank Loans in Spain published by the regulator ensures that "the criteria for granting loans for consumption and other purposes were toughened between April and June 2019" as a result of a lower risk tolerance by the banks and "a worsening of the solvency conditions of the borrowers".

From the Negotiating Agency, they agree on this diagnosis and do not speak so much of "over- indebtedness " of households as of "misunderstanding" , which is "pernicious and dangerous" for the family's financial stability. This is also noted in the composition of the debt: the percentage of credit not destined for the purchase of housing (consumer credit) in the total amount refinanced in a debt grouping operation is approximately 20%. Otherwise: one in five euros that Spanish families refinance come from consumer credit and the rest corresponds to the mortgage.

"The problem is that paying that 20% of the total generates many difficulties, because the interests are very high and often they are debts that are incurred without any criteria," they say in the company. Within that percentage of consumer credit, one part belongs to the credit itself and another to credit from cards in a ratio of one to three, that is, for every euro that is due to consumer credit, three are due to deferment Of cards.

"Usury"

Thousands of revolving cards have been marketed in recent years through campaigns that highlighted the possibility of accessing fast credits with hardly any paperwork.

This is one of the "traps" that users must take into account, as highlighted by Claim for me . On the platform they handle a growing number of legal claims that have found protection in a recent Supreme Court ruling that, if the requirements to consider that a credit is in violation of the Law of Repression of Usury are met, they should be considered abusive and both null. "The norm, issued in 1908, does not set precise limits but does set the requirements to consider that a loan is leonino : it will be one that sets an interest 'markedly higher than normal money' and that is' manifestly disproportionate to the circumstances of the case '", they point out.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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