Almost 397,000 ‘case files’ were opened in the first six months of this year for people falling behind on loan repayments.
It’s an increase of more than 53,000 than in the previous six months, reports tabloid Correio da Manhã, and comes in spite of all the moratoria in place to help families where household incomes have dropped as a result of the pandemic.
In percentage terms, it means ‘failure to comply’ with terms of loan agreements is up by 16%.
More than 50% of the cases involve credit cards. The next highest area in which people are falling behind is ‘personal credit’.
In the main, families are keeping up with mortgage payments – though here too there has been an 11.2% increase in cases where people are falling behind.
The data has been released by the Bank of Portugal.
