Some Slovaks are too indebted, thousands of families under threat

Nearly one in 10 households in Slovakia who has asked for their payment instalments to be deferred due to the coronavirus crisis are threatened with living on the brink of a financial precipice or even falling into the abyss.

The recent poll was carried out in July by the Focus agency for the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS), the country’s central bank. The poll was on how households would be able to start repaying their instalments after nine months, following the end of the so-called instalment moratorium where they are not required to repay their commitments. It suggests that 9 percent of more than 1,000 families polled would have financial problems, the economic Index magazine reported.

NBS plans to carry out five more surveys by December.

Lost contact with reality

Although NBS Governor Peter Kažimír praised the deferral of instalments, he said that banks have lost contact with clients for nine months. Households have postponed instalments of altogether 51,000 mortgages and 61,000 consumer loans.