MediaMarkt and Otto grumble about 10% credit interest | Money

The companies confirm this after previous reports from Het Financieele Dagblad. Since August 10, the Ministry of Finance has imposed this temporary measure on behalf of the Lower House.

The ministry asked for these interest rates to be lowered during the corona crisis, because low-income households could get into trouble due to the high interest rates. It is not clear for how long the measure will apply. Minister Wopke Hoekstra is still investigating what a good interest rate is for the long term. In April, a motion by Member of Parliament Jasper van Dijk of the SP was passed, calling on the government to, among other things, restrict ‘usurious interest’ charged by mail order companies.

MediaMarkt says that the lowering of the interest rate is putting “serious pressure” on credit payments. The electronics chain continues to offer this payment option, but does not rule out that it will disappear in its current form “as a result of new developments.” According to MediaMarkt, a small proportion of customers make use of buying on credit and this often concerns the more expensive products.

Web store Otto provides many low credits of a few hundred euros. “It takes a lot of work, because we reject more than half of the applications,” said a spokesman. If the interest rate cut is maintained for a long time, or becomes permanent, Otto must re-examine whether offering products on installment is still profitable. “But it could also be that we still want to offer options for our customers,” said the spokesman.

At the beginning of this year, the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) published figures on payment arrears and the number of outstanding credits at shipping companies. In 2019, online stores took out almost half a million loans, of which more than a quarter are due to payment arrears.

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