Consumer credit reaches pre-crisis levels thanks to ‘Black Friday’

The evolution of the new consumer credit concessions has suffered sharp peaks and valleys throughout 2019. The operations went from leading to a slowdown in the middle of the year and leading to a fall of more than 6% in August until being strongly promoted in the last quarter of the year and reach in November, and for the first time in 11 years, figures before the crisis.

The bank granted last November 3,708 million euros in consumer loans, according to the latest data published by the Bank of Spain. The last time the entities granted a similar number of personal loans was in 2008. During the first months of that year, the granting of these credits ranged between 3,671 million and 4,446 million, to begin to fall in July below of 3,000 million and not recover the pre-crisis figures until November.

Precisely, in November the already famous Black Friday takes place, whose tradition has settled so fast in our country that, according to a Deloitte report, the Spaniards already advance 23% of Christmas spending to this date. In fact, according to another study prepared by Google, the stores billed 1.6 billion euros in Spain for the sales of the last Black Friday, 10% more than in 2018.

Oliver Wyman said that 83% of Spaniards had planned to make a purchase on Black Friday. But also, just three days after this Black Friday, Cybermonday or Cybermon is celebrated, which has also begun to take center stage in Spain for the offers in technology it launches. The Webloyalty report pointed out that the Spaniards spent 240 euros on Black Friday this year and another 60 euros on Cyber ​​Monday.

Interest reduction

With this panorama of consumption, banks have also started in recent years to make their own offers taking advantage of these days to place their products. In fact, several entities lower the interest on their consumer loans within their own campaigns for Black Friday. In addition, banks also make pre-granted loan offers available to their customers.

The bank substantially reduced the interest rates it claims for the concession at the end of last year. As this newspaper advanced, in November, the rates applied dropped on average for this type of financing to 7.56%, a percentage not seen since 2010. The cut was relevant, since in October it stood at 8.34 % and on rare occasions it has dropped from 8%.

This moment of expansion of personal loans collides with the warnings that the Bank of Spain has been launching since the end of 2018 so that the bank hardens the granting of consumer loans before a rise in delinquency. The institution repeated the message in mid-2019 after accelerating defaults as a prelude to the economic slowdown.

The bank, forced to offer the price of mortgages without bonuses