Parliament agrees to end once and for all the commissions charged for the processing of credit terms. At the moment, this prohibition only applies to contracts concluded after 1 January 2021. But Bloco de Esquerda and PAN have introduced bills that aim to extend the measure to credits before that date. And the PS, the party with an absolute majority, is evaluating its viability, Dinheiro Vivo knows.
The average monthly payment for consumers with this commission is 2.65 euros, an amount that has increased by 55% in the past eight years, according to Deco Proteste. Households and businesses with consumer or home loans before January 2021 pay that amount each time they transfer the installment due to the financial entity. The average annual expenditure is 31.80 euros, adds Deco, based on the values used by banks.
The unequal treatment between the most recent contracts and the old ones had already been denounced by Deco after in 2020 the Assembly of the Republic approved the ban on this type of bank charges, but only for credits after 2021. entity, “carrying 5.1 million contracts still these costs, representing a total inflow of 119.3 million euros in commissions by banks”. “In the case of housing loans, for example, there will be nearly two million contracts whose holders will continue to be sacrificed for decades with this charge,” Deco warned.
With a mortgage loan, for example, and if this difference is not corrected, after 30 years consumers will have paid almost three thousand euros more than those who have taken out loans from 2021, under the same conditions and with the same deadlines. , signals Deco.
PS deputy Miguel Matos, who coordinated the working group on banking commissions in parliament in 2020, explained to DN / Dinheiro Vivo that at the time “for reasons of legal certainty, the ban on banking commissions through the processing of installments was only applied a posteriori, because these costs were included in the APR”, the annual worldwide effective rate that banks charge for a loan. The socialist now opens the door to the analysis of BE and PAN projects: “We are going to evaluate the proposals because Deco has raised awareness about this matter”.
Renegotiate loan
Another project on the table, for which the green light will be guaranteed by the signature of the absolute majority of the PS, concerns the lifting of the limits, recommended by the Bank of Portugal, on credit terms, which can reach up to 35 years, when borrowers are over 35 years old, and the extension of the maximum age for paying a loan, from 70 to 75 years old, when renegotiating a loan for the purchase of a home is at stake. The goal is to extend the amortization period and thus reduce the installment period. These are adjustments to the government diploma to mitigate the negative impact of interest rate hikes.
It should be remembered that these measures are exceptional, only in force during this year, and can only be activated in the case of loans of up to 300 thousand euros, indexed to the Euribor variable interest rate, for the acquisition of permanent housing, when the effort percentage higher than 36%, under certain conditions. To a large extent, the decree of the executive already provides for the situations that the PS is now proposing. To DN / Dinheiro Vivo, the Portuguese Association of Banks assured that “the banks are diligently complying with what is foreseen in the decree law”. However, PS deputy Miguel Matos defends the need to clarify the rules to prevent financial institutions from refusing to restructure a loan. “There are banks that make loan renegotiation difficult and even reject it because of limits on the term of borrowers, according to complaints received by the parliamentary group,” says the socialist.
The PS bill also stipulates that during the period of validity of the government’s decree-law reinforcing the obligation to renegotiate home loans when the effort rate exceeds 36%, banks “will not under certain circumstances contract, purchase or lease goods or services , of a financial or other nature, in return for renegotiating a credit agreement”.
Nuno Rico, Financial Affairs specialist at Deco Proteste, finds “this change in the law positive”, as the institution is “known of cases where banks require the contracting of other financial products or services to enable the renegotiation of a credit agreement”. However, the expert warns that compliance with this rule “will be difficult to monitor if there is no consumer complaint”.
Salomé Pinto is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
