<Anchor> It
is a friendly economy time.
Today (30th), I will be with reporter Kwon Ae-ri.
It's the last Friday of the year.
Looking back on this year, interest rates have really risen a lot.
There were a lot of things like that, but at the end of this year, something absurd happened at a credit union, right?
<Reporter>
Yes.
Let's take a look at the notice recently sent by a credit union in Cheongju to customers who were paying loan interest at a fixed rate.
The interest rate is fixed, but the interest rate changes inevitably.
The reason is that the Bank of Korea has also raised its base interest rate due to the financial crisis caused by the change in the global environment, and these days, other financial institutions are receiving more than 5% of interest rates.
At the same time, it announces that it will raise the interest rate on fixed-rate loans from 2.5% to 4.5% by 2 percentage points at once.
If you took out a loan worth 100 million won, you would pay about 210,000 won in monthly interest, then suddenly raise it to a level where you had to pay 380,000 won each.
<Anchor>
This is a fixed rate.
Can the credit union raise the fixed interest rate like this?
[Reporter
] Actually, that doesn't make sense.
In some cases this is not the case, but in general, fixed rate loans have higher interest rates than variable rate loans.
Even if the market interest rate changes, I will pay the nailed rate, so the borrower chooses a more expensive fixed rate because there is an agreement to bear more burden.
However, this credit union pushed the terms and conditions as the basis for such a sudden request to change the contract.
There is a phrase like this in the basic terms and conditions commonly used by banks that handle loans as well as credit unions.
'The interest rate can be changed when there is a sudden change in the national economy or financial situation.'
The first reason this fact became widely known outside was a post posted on the online community by a person who was notified of this credit union.
There are more than 130 other people besides this person who have received this absurd notice.
However, the response of the financial authorities is that it is nonsense in a word.
It's not a natural disaster, it's just that the interest rate in the market is rising, and even if this situation comes, you can't unilaterally make this request to fixed-rate borrowers who have signed contracts with each other not to change the interest rate.
As this incident became known nationwide, the credit union also withdrew its notice to customers saying that it was nothing.
[Credit Union Federation official: (not only the problem credit union), we are planning to go out with guidance documents once again for all unions.
Since this should not happen again, we will guide and guide you once again.]
<Anchor>
In the end, it did not happen.
But is this your first time?
Have you ever been there before?
<Reporter>
In fact, during the foreign exchange crisis in the late 1990s, Dongyang Card suddenly raised its fixed-rate loan by 10%.
However, at the time, the court sided with the credit card company, not the borrowers.
The foreign exchange crisis was literally a national bankruptcy.
This is the case of sudden changes in the national economy and financial situation and financial natural disasters in the basic terms and conditions of credit transaction.
Another example of a financial disaster that the Financial Supervisory Service cited is when Korea's credit rating falls by two or more levels at once, which is also unheard of except during the financial crisis.
Although the rate hike trend has been rapid recently, that is not an excuse to change the fixed rate.
It is precisely in this situation that borrowers opt for fixed rates, with higher interest rates and the possibility of upset if interest rates fall.
<Anchor>
Then, this incident ended up happening in the end.
However, it will not end with a happening, but I think you will be able to point out a little bit about the implications of this situation.
Isn't this what the financial situation is so bad right now?
<Reporter>
Yes.
Actually that's the problem.
It's not just financial consumers who are having trouble finding money these days, but also some financial companies.
Recently, a local livestock agricultural cooperative offered a special installment savings account with an interest rate of 10%, but canceled it because too many people flocked to it.
In fact, this kind of thing happens when you try to deposit your money even if you pay a little burdensome interest.
Even in the flow of funds, polarization can be seen these days.
Since interest rates are rising rapidly, you can receive quite high interest rates from commercial banks, and as you feel a sense of crisis about the financial situation, a record amount of money is being poured into bank deposits.
On the other hand, money is flowing out of the mutual finance sector.
Recently, there are frequent cases where new loans are stopped or reduced in various places in the 2nd financial sector.
Because the cost of obtaining money is too high and you have to be careful in the future, financial companies that are flocking to borrowers with low credit are not lending at all.
This is an absurd thing that should not have happened when a credit union tried to raise the fixed interest rate at will.
It seems that it is time to check whether this kind of happening has recently been heard here and there is a signal to be wary of.