According to the FMSG, the FMA should also exclude the pre-financing of non-repayable grants by local authorities in the amount of these grants from the scope of the KIM-V for a maximum period of two years. After all, this form of public subsidies only temporarily increases borrower debt.
On the one hand, this increases the flexibility of the KIM-V, but on the other hand it ensures that the additional risks remain limited, according to the FMSG. The committee also recalled that, by international comparison, generous exception quotas are already available.
Finance Minister Magnus Brunner (ÖVP) welcomed the recommendation to relax as a “positive first step”. It is high time that interim financing can be sufficiently taken into account when lending, it said in a broadcast on Monday afternoon. Lending must be made more flexible, simpler and closer to people’s needs. “This does not require the regulations to be undermined, but rather a practical application, especially with the possible exception quotas,” says Brunner.
Secretary of State for Youth Claudia Plakolm (ÖVP) took a similar line. She called for further easing of lending standards. “Young people need the perspective that with diligence they can afford their first four walls,” said Plakolm in a statement.
The FMSG is made up of representatives from the Ministry of Finance, one of whom also heads the committee, as well as representatives from the National Bank (OeNB), the Fiscal Council and the FMA. The FMA follows the mandatory recommendations of the body and is responsible for the ordinance.
Recently, at the political level, from Finance Minister Brunner down, voices had been raised to examine the easing of the regulation. Banking and real estate industry representatives have also voiced more and more criticism. The construction trade union recently warned of declining construction orders and it was only on Monday that Carinthia’s governor Peter Kaiser (SPÖ) and Upper Austria’s governor Thomas Stelzer (ÖVP) called for the lending rules to be relaxed.
