News
The article is more than 10 years old

Finns with bad credit rating at all-time high

According to the consumer credit association Asiakastieto, nearly 370,000 Finns have payment defaults on their credit records. The last time this figure was almost as high was just after the 1990s recession.

Lasku
Image: Anssi Leppänen / Yle

On average since the beginning of this year, some 141 new people with bad credit ratings are added to their registers every day, Jouni Muhonen, Service Development Manager at Asiakastieto said.

The last time so many Finns were having difficulty paying bills was in 1997 when some 368,000 people were in Asiakastieto’s bad credit books.

Most of the people in financial trouble were men between 25 and 49 years of age.

Muhonen said that older generations are also having increased money problems. People over the age of 65 saw a 15 percent increase in payment defaults, he said.

One positive development can be found with the younger crowd. Asiakastieto’s payment default register saw a significant drop in the number of people under the age of 20, Muhonen said.

The main reason behind the drop, among other things, is the recent increased difficulties that younger adults have in getting credit.