A total of 2,500 debtors of Banco Hipotecario they will stop paying and another percentage will refinance the debt without interest, within the framework of a bill that will be presented in July due to the conflict with the loans in Resettable Units (UR), as confirmed President Luis Lacalle Pou to government legislators.
The initiative also includes the merger of Banco Hipotecario with Banco República, in a measure that implies a cost close to the 330 million dollars. He Colorado Senator Germán Coutinho assured that it is a “big effort”, which will mean “a solution” for Uruguayan families, that are increasingly in debt, according to the warnings of different specialists.
A total of 2,500 families “They won’t pay anything” the legislator anticipated with respect to those who have been paying for 40 years. The project also proposes that “a significant number of thousands of families” pay “what remains without interest,” Coutinho said at a press conference.
The senator highlighted the work with the Senators Sergio Botana, Carlos Camy and the current Housing Minister, Raúl Lozano. “We have been making an effort with the Board of Directors of the Mortgage Bank, with the authorities of the National Housing Agency and we have been closely following the problem,” he said from the Executive Tower.
Referring to the scope of the project, Coutinho admitted that the trigger “is that Banco Hipotecario definitely merges with Banco República.” However, he admitted that to achieve this it will be necessary “a very broad political negotiation”, since a measure like this requires two thirds of the vote.
How much is the debt of Uruguayan families?
There are tens of thousands of families that are still in conflict with the BHU over the “usury” interest that were fixed in the loans in UR. The total debt amounts to 9.7 billion dollars, although this figure also includes consumer financing with debt.
The Exante’s manager, Alicia Corcoll, admitted in dialogue with Ámbito.com that “the total indebtedness of families is 9,700 million dollars, of which 3,400 million dollars are mortgage loans”. However, he recalled that credit is necessary for the proper functioning of the economy.
“In 2022 and the beginning of 2023, this indebtedness grew at an annual rate of 6% in real terms, but it came from several years with moderate growth,” he explained. Despite the numbers, the specialist considered that “We are not facing high levels of indebtedness”, if the penetration of credit to families is observed in relation to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country. In fact, “it looks low in international comparison.”
“It is a fact that we have a lot of people with credit defaults and that probably many of these breaches have been going on for a long time”, considered the manager of Exante. In addition, Corcoll assured that “the fundamental problem faced by people with unpaid debts in a structural way is the vulnerability they have, because they do not access the job market under reasonable conditions.”
Source: Ambito
