The Finnish banking sector has supported its retail and corporate customers in many ways to help them through the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. A concrete example of this are the flexible servicing arrangements granted to existing loans. In the last three months, more than 270,000 households and businesses have applied for loan grace periods and other arrangements. A month ago the number of applications totalled 210,000. Most of them have been related personal home loans.
In the period between 6 March and 12 June, banks have received grace period applications from about 238,000 retail customers and 32,000 companies. A substantial number have already been processed. Nearly all have been accepted. The number of new applications from businesses has levelled out in June. Households’ applications are also beginning to normalise in volume. This information has been supplied by banks operating in Finland.
“Each bank decides its relief measures individually and on a case-by-case basis. The specific terms and conditions for services also vary between banks. The prerequisite for grace periods and other flexible arrangements is that the customer had no pre-crisis loan servicing difficulties and that the bank estimates the customer’s repayment ability will return to normal after the crisis”, says Finance Finland’s (FFI) Director and Chief Economist Veli-Matti Mattila.
“This is not the first time Finns are facing difficult challenges together. As before, teamwork is the way through. Once the acute phase of the crisis is over, banks stand ready to finance economic recovery and thus give rise to new prosperity and well-being in Finland”, Mattila says.
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