The municipal banks expect that informal credit will continue to increase in our country, because the measures promoted by the Congress of the Republic, supposedly in defense of consumers, are expelling people from the financial system.
Proof of this is the increase in the participation of credit to small businesses in this system to the detriment of credit to microenterprises. To begin with, according to the regulation, among other characteristics, a small business loan is intended for businesses whose debt in the financial system in the last 6 months is greater than S/20 thousand. In the case of loans to microenterprises, the debt considered is less than S/20 thousand.
According to the SBS, loans to small businesses from municipal savings banks have increased their share in the last five years. They have gone from representing 42.5% in October 2019 to 62.8% as of October 2024. In monetary terms, the amount of the portfolio has gone from S/9,778 million to S/22,495 million in five years.
In contrast, the participation of loans to microenterprises has gone from representing 19.3% in October 2019 to 11.5% in October 2024, reducing its portfolio from S/4,427 million to S/4,105 million.
What is the explanation?
According to Walter Rojas, Central Business Manager of Caja Cusco, with the pandemic many businesses had to close or stop operating which led them to default on their payments. Although the Government provided measures, when the deadline for these expired and the clients had not recovered the boxes, as well as other entities in the financial system, they had to classify them as Doubtful or Loss, as required by regulation.
Therefore, if an entity was willing to lend to said clients despite their situation, they are obliged by the same regulation to make provisions, that is, to have unused money so that if these clients fall into default again, said reserves serve as backup. However, maintaining supplies is not a business, since if that money is not placed and earns interest, the entities have to put their hand in their pockets and pay the depositors with their own. Therefore, assuming greater risk leads to charging higher interest rates, but with the rate cap rule, attention to these clients is limited.
“There is an alternative that when the client is in a Loss rating, from the disbursement I must make a provision, but to cover that provision what was done was to apply a higher interest rate to cover that risk. But when they put the limit on us, it limits us to serving that segment and those clients migrate to take out loans in the informal system,” he commented.
According to BCR calculations, three years after the implementation of the rule, the interest rate caps have affected 542.9 thousand clients. However, the number may be higher considering that access is restricted to clients of a certain risk level.
The above explains why despite the increase in financial inclusion in Peru, important gaps persist, as indicated by the latest Credicorp Financial Inclusion Index (IIF).
For example, in the last year, people of low socioeconomic level with an achieved level of inclusion only increased by 1 percentage point, while people of high socioeconomic level increased 9 percentage points, thus closing the gap between people of high and low income went from 33 points to 41 points.
Who is not being lent to?
In the case of new clients, Jorge Solis, president of the Federation of Municipal Savings and Credit Banks (FEPCMAC), maintains that they are not being provided to small businesses that do not have information to corroborate their income and that lack guarantees. to support debts.
Both Solis and Rojas expect informal loans to increase this year. According to Solis, especially because in addition to ‘drop by drop’, which has recently been punished, there are other informal practices, which, since they are not regulated, charge clients whatever they want. In addition, they collect information that is later used for negative uses.
This year, Congress had the opportunity to correct its mistake with the anti-usury law that sets caps on rates, but its populist attitude led it to refuse to make such a decision, according to left-wing groups and those who live off the money. populism, because that benefits the banks, but it is not the banks that charge the highest rates. The interest rates of the four main banks are not the highest, because their market niche is different from that served by microfinance institutions such as savings banks.
In Solis’ opinion, the SBS should present an initiative in Congress to restrict the informal credit that grows every year.
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