We supervise the financial marketsFI is publishing a Q&A on new rules that will go into effect on 14 September.
The majority of consumption loans (non-mortgage loans) are small and have a high interest rate and a short maturity. However, it is households with large loans that represent the largest share of new lending, and these loans are growing at the fastest rate. The households with the highest income take out the largest loans. If the interest rate increases, many borrowers will need to use a large part of their income to make their interest and amortisation payments. This is evident in Finansinspektionen’s (FI’s) analysis of consumption loans, Swedish Consumption Loans.
Both the global and the Swedish economies appear to be slowing down. Low interest rates – which have resulted in high risk-taking and rising asset prices – are expected to remain low for a prolonged period of time. Resilience in the Swedish financial system is satisfactory in general. However, even if the banks’ resilience is satisfactory overall, FI makes the assessment that they need more capital to cover the risks in their lending to commercial real estate firms.
FI’s Director General participated in the seminar Evolution of Mortgage Finance arranged by Stabelo for a broad group of institutional investors.
In this report, Finansinspektionen (FI) presents the most prioritised consumer risks it has identified for 2019. FI also presents the experiences from its consumer protection work over the past year. Finally, FI identifies two areas on the financial market where consumer protection is clearly deficient and proposes regulatory changes to fill these gaps.
High debt can mean risks for individual households, banks, financial stability and macroeconomic development. The mortgage survey serves as an important basis for the assessment of the risks associated with household debt.
Under FI's stricter amortisation requirement, which went into effect on 1 March 2018, new mortgagors with debt in excess of 450 per cent of gross income must amortise 1 percentage point more of their loan per year in addition to the existing requirement. The objective of the stricter requirement is to strengthen resilience of households by decreasing the number of mortgagors who have high debt in relation to their income.
