Credit cards: For the first time in eight months, their use plummeted in February

Ana Clara Pedotti

03/08/2021 7:40 AM

• Clarín.com

• Economy

Updated 03/08/2021 7:41 AM

The

loans to the private sector

fell 2.1% in real terms in February and thus accumulated

three months lower thread.

Although credit to companies was the one that contracted the most, with a fall of 2.3% compared to January in real terms,

consumer financing

in households also suffered a high impact.

Above all, and for the first time since June last year, there was a drop in the use of credit cards, which had already registered a slowdown in growth last month. 

At a general level, consumer credit

yielded 2.1%

compared to what had been seen in the first month of the year and thus broke the dynamics that it had registered in recent months.

Contrary to what had occurred in the last eight months, in which

credit cards had led the financing of families,

this decline was explained to a greater extent by a reduction in the use of plastics.

Compared to what had been seen in the first month of 2021, the stock of credit cards

fell 2.8% in real terms in February. 

Several factors explain this change in trend.

On the one hand, the banks have not updated the debt limits of the middle tranches of their client portfolios to avoid a jump in default.

This is in addition to the high debt limits of households, especially of those who entered the refinancing plan for their balances last September and who "kicked quotas."

In addition, although to a lesser extent, the introduction of the Stamp Tax has a greater impact on the City of Buenos Aires and discourages the use of plastics.

​

Meanwhile,

personal loans

also registered a 0.9% drop compared to the previous month.

"In February, the reversal in the dynamics of loans that had appeared in January was consolidated. While loans with real guarantee were the most affected in the last year and a half, mainly due to mortgage loans that accumulate 32 months of real monthly adjustment , this me

s the financing to companies and consumption had the worst records

"they explained in the consulting firm LCG.

"In the first case, the decline has been accelerating for five months, showing a credit market that cannot recover, despite the (timid) reactivation of activity. In the second case, the dynamics are similar and the Credits through credit cards that had gained momentum from June 20 with Now 12/18, had been progressively decelerating growth, until this month in which they showed a

real fall similar to that of the months of confinement

", added.

Within this panorama, last month there was a positive evolution of the stock in pesos of pledged loans, linked to an improvement in the level of automotive patenting.

In monthly terms, there was an improvement of 0.7% and an accumulated growth of this line of 6.2% in real terms, which was registered a year ago. 

"There is a sustained demand for this operation, which

could

surely

be more important if the supply of zero km wheeled

vehicles

were greater:

limitations on imports and a lower level of manufacturing activity due to the pandemic, restrict the supply of new vehicles and therefore hence they put a ceiling on the amount of new collateral ”, explained Guillermo Barbero, Partner of First Capital Group.

YN

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