One of the positive side effects of the abrupt drop in rates issued by the Central Bank this week
should be the reduction in the cost of private credit
, which has been paralyzed for months.
Public banks
stepped
up and announced
a sharp cut
in the rates associated with the financing of families and businesses;
while private entities are still "analyzing" the issue.
This Thursday,
Banco Nación
reported that it is cutting loan rates in pesos for
people and retirees
who receive salaries in its entity of the order of
25 percentage points.
In this way, the credit rate for the general portfolio
drops from 89% to 63%
, while for
retirees it is also reduced from 88% annually to 63%.
During the week, the organization had already advanced with a similar decrease for the
agricultural sector and brought
the cost of requesting a loan to finance the purchase of machinery for this sector to 44% annually.
Generally, it is the public bank that comes forward to make these types of moves, which functions as a
"spearhead"
for the entire rest of the financial system.
Still led by another political sign,
Banco Provincia also cut its rates
, with strong emphasis on business financing.
According to sources from the Buenos Aires entity, since this week the declines for both
working capital credits and check discounting
have been around 40 to 50 percentage points.
For now,
Banco Ciudad
has not come out with a similar measure.
Yes, the Buenos Aires entity
had sharply lowered its rates before the
Central Bank's announcement in a line especially designed for students.
As reported by the City exactly a week ago, this is financing for "broad destinations" that allows access to an
amount of up to $10 million,
for a term of up to
48 months
and with a new promotional
fixed rate
of
66%
TNA.
"These loans allow the figure of the guarantor for those who do not have their own income and are complemented with specific banking services, benefits and exclusive promotions," they explained.
The strong liquefaction of the remunerated liabilities of the Central Bank that Luis Caputo and Santiago Bausili faced three months ago completely changed the business of the banks that for years had stopped lending to the private sector to finance the Central via leliq.
However, the entities said that the three-digit rates that governed the economy until Tuesday "did not allow" them to think about expanding the supply of credit to families and individuals.
One of the arguments they gave was that, with the fixed term rate stuck at 110% annually,
the cost of "capturing" pesos and then lending them was still expensive for the banks
.
Therefore, the "liberation" of the minimum rates carried out by the Central Bank this week could unblock this issue.
On Tuesday morning, most
private entities
were quick to adjust their systems to reduce annual
placement
yields to a level
between 75% and 70%
.
However, they took their time to inform their customers of a similar drop in loan rates.
Above all, they waited to know the inflation data that the INDEC finally communicated in the order of 13.2%.
In a private entity they announced that the rate will go down "a lot." "The drop will be in line with the reduction in the transfer rate, or perhaps higher."
In some
homebanking,
these drops have already begun to be seen and, for example,
rates of 86% appear for personal loans.
The reduction in rates should also make fintech
loans cheaper
, which as a general rule have a higher financial cost than in traditional financial institutions.
"There will surely be an impact," they warned on a wallet, although they could not specify the new prices.
The speed of reflexes of the financial sector at this point could be key to reducing in the coming months the fall in private credit, hard hit in recent years: according to data from the consulting firm LCG, the stock of pesos "lent" to families and companies in banks is barely 30% of what was seen in 2018.
NE