ECHONOMICS: Experts warn against the exponential growth of fraudulent credits

Experts warn against the exponential growth of fraudulent credits, which may triplicate this year. Such is the forecast given by the National Bureau of credit history on the basis of the delay registered in January-May. The amount of the credits with over 90 days of the delay and no payments registered grew 25%. Such credits are certainly irretrievable. Alexander Vikulin, general director of the NBCH, points out that the credits with signs of fraudulent activity of the borrowers have not yet become a systemic problem, but the dynamics are ominous: an average of 11 thousand of new such credits were registered monthly last year, and 30 thousand – this year. The banks actively give credits to persons, whom they used to not consider valid borrowers in the past, and this is the reason why.

Expert’s commentary

Evgeny Zhilin, Associated Partner of the Law Firm "YUST"

Any issued credit is a transaction. The bank is always entitled to demand full repayment of the credit. If the credit is not paid, it, as a rule, becomes a default, and the bank may do either of the two: to go to courts or to assign the rights to recover the debt to a collector or a collector agency. In a civil law sense, the exaction either way is concluded by a judgment, its enactment, initiation of execution proceedings, and at this point the borrowers will have a hard time evading liability. The criminal law aspect is also significant: there is a separate corpus delicti stipulated by Article 159.1 of the Penal Code of Russia, which establishes liability for frauds in the credit sphere. In particular, it mentions theft of money by the borrower by providing the bank or other creditor with knowingly false and (or) unreliable information. If it is proven that the borrower knowingly did not intend to repay the credit, this is theft, and the chances of criminal persecution are significant indeed. The Penal Code also stipulates liability for malicious evasion of discharging credit duty – Article 177. This is a separate corpus delicti, but requires a judgment which is not executed by the debtor. It is understandably difficult to persecute people for the unpaid 10 or 20 thousand roubles of micro credits, but even such a small amount may still be a basis for criminal liability. And this will likely become a certain stopper for many people.

Source of the publication: Echo Moskvy. “Banking Herald” – special issue of Echonomics, 21.06.2013 (on air – 18:46).