“We are currently seeing a slump in consumer credit,” explains Tanja Birkholz, CEO of Schufa.
(Photo: dpa)
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Berlin The consequences of the corona crisis are now also evident in the lending business. In early February, the demand for installment loans fell by 33 percent compared to the same period in the previous year, according to data from Schufa. “We are currently observing a slump in consumer credit,” explains Tanja Birkholz, CEO of Schufa first lockdowns between March and July 2020. ”
According to the banking association, an average of every fourth household uses installment loans to finance consumer goods. Two thirds of all loans are used to finance a car. Installment loans are also popular when purchasing furniture or consumer electronics. In the course of the lockdown, however, car dealerships and electronics stores had closed, so there were fewer reasons to take out a loan.
The banking association has not yet collected its own figures on the conclusion of installment loans. But the figures published so far by the Federal Statistical Office would point in a similar direction to those of Schufa, according to Stephan Moll, head of the market department at the banking association.
However, the figures are not a forecast for the rest of the year. “In the fourth quarter of last year, the trend was reversed and the installment loans were above the previous year’s level,” explains Moll. According to the Bundesbank, the stock of installment loans increased by one percent to EUR 177 billion at the end of 2020.
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While stationary trade continues to suffer from the lockdown, another line of business is benefiting: e-commerce. The indicator for this is the number of inquiries that online retailers make to Schufa, for example to check the creditworthiness or identity of a customer. “At the beginning of 2021, inquiries from e-commerce were up to 50 percent higher than in the same period of the previous year,” says Schufa.
The number of people with payment difficulties remained at a low level despite rising unemployment and short-time working. At the beginning of February, the number of affected consumers was even 15 percent below the same period last year in 2020. According to the experience of the banking association, comparatively few customers have asked, for example, about loan deferrals.
More: The bank reports the Schufa account overdraft and is punished.
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