Curbing household indebtedness proposed

A Ministry of Finance working group has proposed that the maximum amount of household loans would be linked to annual income. The group’s proposals also include limitations to housing company loans.

The working group submitted its report to Minister of Finance Mika Lintilä on Tuesday, said an official press release.

The indebtedness of Finnish households has risen historically high. At the same time, payment defaults have grown.

The working group proposes that the following new measures are considered in order to curb excessive household indebtedness:

Maximum debt-to-income ratio (DTI): The amount of a household’s all credits should not exceed 4.5 times the annual gross income of the household when applying for new credit. The new loan, the previous loans and the share of the housing company loans would be taken into account in the calculation.

Maximum maturity: The maturity of housing loans should not exceed 25 years. During the loan period, payment arrangements could still be agreed, such as interest only periods.

Limitations to housing company loans in new housing construction: A housing company would be able borrow at most 60 per cent of the unencumbered price of the flats to be sold. The maturity could not exceed 25 years, and there should be no interest only periods for five years from the completion of the dwelling.

Under certain conditions, creditors could deviate from these rules. In addition to credit institutions, the rules would apply to other creditors as well.

According to the proposal, the loan ceiling, or the loan-to-collateral ratio, would remain unchanged but in future, it would also apply to others granting housing loans than credit institutions. Nowadays the amount of housing loan may not exceed 85 per cent of the current value of the collateral when granting a loan. For first homes, the ceiling is 95 per cent.

“Our proposal would not significantly tighten granting of housing loans in the current situation. However, we should prepare for the markets to overheat,” said Director General Leena Mörttinen, chair of the working group.

The working group also proposes that all supervision of consumer creditors would be transferred from the Regional State Administrative Agency of Southern Finland to the Financial Supervisory Authority. At the same time, the regulation concerning the management of insolvency risks and the requirements for assessing credit worthiness would be developed.

The working group considers it important that a positive credit register is introduced in Finland from which a person’s all credits could be seen. Its introduction is included in the Government Programme.

“The development of household indebtedness is worrying, and the EU supervisor recently recommended measures for Finland to curb indebtedness. It is good that now the matter has also been considered exhaustively in the working group. The report gives a basis for a broad-based discussion on the measures we should take to curb indebtedness,” said Lintilä.

The Ministry of Finance sent the proposals for comments on October 1. The deadline for comments is on 29 November.