Extrajudicial mechanism: Claims for debt adjustment more than doubled in February

The Ministry of Finance also officially issued today (8.3.2024) an announcement that refers to the overfolding of debtors on its platform for the month of February. In particular, 7,360 were the new applications from debtors submitted to the platform of the new extrajudicial mechanism in February. The number of new applications is more than twice the number of applications in previous months – the average in 2023 was 3,400 new applications per month – and is a record and historical high. The overfolding of applications is directly related to the integration, since February, of the platform of the extra-judicial mechanism of changes – improvements established by the Ministry of National Economy and Finance: the additional “hairing” up to 28% of the debt on loans with tangible collateral, the obligation for banks, services and the State to accept the proposal of the extra-judicial mechanism for vulnerable debtors, the reduction of the interest rate for all the debt arrangements to 3% for 3 years, the possibility to join the extra-judicial mechanism persons who “inherited” debts, from debts they have. Similarly there was a historical high in new arrangements, since, according to the data of the General Secretariat for Financial Sector and Private Debt Management in February 2024, 1,222 new successful debt arrangements were carried out. Thus overall, 14,322 successful debt arrangements corresponding to EUR 5,17 billion of initial debts have been made through the extrajudicial compromise. At the same time, bilateral arrangements concluded directly with debtors were high levels, since for the month of January 2024 direct bilateral arrangements were made for 7,251 debtors, with a debt of EUR 238 million. It is recalled that on the basis of the new relevant legislation by the end of March services are required to operate the special digital information platform for borrowers to provide personalised information.