As of October this year, restructured and refinanced loans totaled S / 5,421 million, which represented an annual growth of 34%, compared to a similar period in a previous year, the Association of Banks reported this Wednesday (Asbanc).
The union pointed out that this growth is almost entirely due to the rebound observed as of May 2020, that is, as a result of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The largest share of restructured and refinanced loans was for loans to medium-sized companies with 30% of the total, followed by consumer loans (26%), large companies (20%), mortgage loans (12%) and small companies (8 %).
Asbanc specified that they were actively offered alternative refinancing and restructuring to the clients that came with payment problems prior to the pandemic.
He explained that refinanced credits They are obligations that have suffered variations in term and / or amount with respect to the original contract, as a result of arrears of the debtor. That is, it is a benefit that is granted to a debtor when he cannot assume a payment obligation with any entity in the financial system and already has more than 30 days of default. To this end, financial institutions offer options and alternative ways to pay different debts, adapting them to the new situation and reality of the clients. In sum, a refinancing implies changes in the contractual conditions of the credit, be it term, interest rate and / or installment.
The refinancing operation can be requested by the debtor. In view of this, financial institutions demand a repayment of a percentage of the past due balance and refinance the remaining balance for a longer term. However, in the current difficult situation, financial institutions have been making the requirements more flexible regarding the requirement of the percentage of amortization of the balance due. In the process of changing the contractual conditions in which the refinancing operation is carried out, the risk classification of the debtors will remain in their original categories, with the exception of debtors classified as normal, whose classification changes to debtors with potential problems (CPP).
As to restructured loans, This mechanism can be requested in the event of problems in the payment compliance of the debtors, due to the financial and patrimonial impossibility to honor their commitments. In this mechanism, INDECOPI fulfills the role of facilitating and promoting a negotiation process between creditors and the debtor to reach a restructuring agreement, in accordance with the Restructuring Plan of the General Law of the Bankruptcy System. This process may imply the rescheduling of payments, new payment conditions and / or the interest rate of the current debt, according to the agreement reached in the negotiation and considering the financial and equity situation of the debtor.
To clients who had been paying their loans on time, but who began to have problems due to the national emergency, the alternative of debt rescheduling.
The rescheduling was offered to customers who were up to date at the beginning of the pandemic, or who, at most, had a maximum of 15 days late at the end of February 2020. In this way, the financial system entities have come rescheduling credits quite dynamically, both individually and massively. This rescheduling generally implied the granting of grace periods, and the extension of the total term of the loan.
For the month of June, rescheduling (considering only ASBANC partners) reached a peak of 6.2 million credits for an amount of S / 112 billion, which is equivalent to 34% of its portfolio and 15% of GDP.
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