Indebtedness of São Paulo families reaches record in April, says FecomercioSP

Indebtedness of São Paulo families reaches record in April, says FecomercioSP

Household indebtedness in the capital of São Paulo reached a record level in April, in the wake of the scenario of rising interest rates and high inflation in the country.

Data from the Consumer Indebtedness and Default Survey (Peic) provided exclusively to Broadcast (Grupo Estado’s real-time news system) by the Federation of Trade in Goods, Services and Tourism of the State of São Paulo (FecomercioSP) show that, in In the fourth month of the year, 3.01 million families were in debt – equivalent to 75.3% of the city’s total households and the highest level in the survey’s historical series, which began in 2010.

In the same month, the survey found a default rate of 24.6% in São Paulo, which represents 986 thousand families with overdue bills.

The proportion of defaulters is higher among families with incomes of less than 10 minimum wages (29.5%), while families with incomes above this level registered a rate of 12.2%. Altogether, 10.1% of defaulters assessed that they should not be able to pay off arrears, also the highest rate since 2010.

Most of the debts of families in April were with credit cards (93.7%), followed by booklets (19.1%) and personal credit (11.2%).

“The increase in the economy’s basic interest rate, the Selic, which went from 2% to 11.75% per year, in addition to hampering access to credit, made financing more expensive, leading to a greater transfer of income to the financial system. , at the expense of consumption. That is, families are paying more in interest and have fewer resources for purchases and bill payments”, observes FecomercioSP, in a note.

The combination of this scenario and high inflation, aggravated by the war in Ukraine, has led families to seek credit as an alternative to maintain consumer power, assesses the entity.

According to a survey, 8.1% of families intended to obtain funds from banks or financial institutions in the coming months. Of these, 66.3% expected to obtain funds for purchases and 31.9% for the payment of debts and bills.

Indebtedness was higher among families with incomes of up to 10 minimum wages (78.1%), against 67.1% of families with higher incomes.

ICF

FecomercioSP also found the Family Consumption Intention Index (ICF) to be almost stable. The indicator advanced 0.6% at the margin, to 76.8 points, pulled by a 5% rise in the Current Employment item, to 102.6 points – the highest level since April 2020.

The Professional Perspective item increased 1.9%, to 99.8 points, and the Current Income item increased 4.2%, to 80.6 points.

“However, the improvement in employment was not enough to counterbalance inflation”, says FecomercioSP. The entity highlights the almost stability of the Current Consumption Level, with an increase of 0.4%, to 57.4 points.

The Consumption Perspective indicator fell by 6%. Finally, the Consumer Confidence Index (ICC) dropped 0.7%, to 104.3 points, with a 1.9% drop in the Consumer Expectations Index (IEC) and a 2.8% increase in the Consumer Confidence Index. Current Economic Conditions.

Source: CNN Brasil