Appliances in installments: almost half of the loans are in arrears

It’s a survey carried out by the Central Bank in a semiannual report in which it analyzes a particular segment of the credit market: entities that give loans or grant credit cards, but that They are not banks. They are called non-financial credit entities.

They have been part of that universe since virtual wallets and fintech best known until consumer chains (supermarkets, appliances, automotive), cooperatives and mutualsand houses of loans with low requirementsrefunds in many installments and very high rates.

The system’s general default numbers are measured monthly by the BCRA and also by specialized consulting firms, which take information from the Debtors Central and make their own estimates.

EcoGo, for example, calculated this week that in April the irregularity between non-banking entities climbed to 28.6%four times more than a year and a half ago. and that he 11,5% accumulates a delay of more than twelve months, that is, they are considered “irrecoverable”.

The report published this Thursday by the BCRA reveals, among other data, that this type of non-banking entities have active loans for almost 14 billion pesos awarded to 12.1 million people. The majority (7 million) asked for money from fintech.

On average, Each debtor owes his non-bank lender 1.1 million pesos. It is not the record figure in the historical series: since November that average balance per client has fallen 3%.

The Central also measured the financial cost. The interest rate of this type of entities quadrupled inflation (144% annual vs. 35% annual in April), although only the annual nominal rate (TNA) was measured, which explains a part of the total interest paid by the client. With other types of surcharges, the CFT (total financial cost) far exceeds those figures.

In any case, the BCRA assured that rates have fallen so far this year, although it is not yet reflected in the credit irregularity figures. He 27% of the money provided by fintech, wallets and commercial chains has 90 days late. The number scales to 33% when also considering those who delayed more than a month.

The novelty of the official report is the detail of what type of non-bank lenders have the most critical numbers. The highest arrears are in a category (“Rest”) established by the Central to classify the entities in question.

These are “companies that grant credit to the general public on a regular and They do not have a specific regulatory framework“. That is, lenders that are not fintech, digital banks, wallets, commercial chains, cooperatives or leasing companies.

In that definition, then, there remain smaller credit institutions, which usually thave lower requirements to lend money, which offer repayment in installments (which can be monthly, biweekly or weekly) and that They charge much higher interest rates than the average fintech.

In this segment the delay in return is 58,4%. It usually has a “base” of late payments that is already high: its minimum in recent years was close to 20%, in October 2024.

In the case of financing provided by the appliance chains for consumption, blackberry rose to 44.3%. As a comparison, at the beginning of 2025 that number was 14.2%.

Over the past few years, these chains have lost ground among non-bank lenders: at the end of 2022 there were 1.5 million people with financing of this type. Now there are 1.2 million.

A peculiarity is that of the 585 companies non-banking companies registered by the Central to give loans or credit cards, almost the 45% correspond to the “Rest” classificationwhich is that of worst ratio of irregularity.

It is a trend that the BCRA observed in its report: despite the critical debt situation, high rates and problems in the return of balances, the number of entities dedicated to lending money increases outside the banks.

Only in the first three months of the year, 29 companies were registered, although ten were deregistered. And since the beginning of last year 114 new entities were registered to that universe of lenders.