Nearly half a million Poles have outstanding liabilities of less than PLN 1,000, according to data from BIK and BIG InfoMonitor, which maintains a register of debtors. The sum of their delayed loan instalments and unpaid bills and alimonies amounts to around PLN 250 million.
As the data collected from the credit information database BIK and the Debtor Register BIG InfoMonitor show, if unreliable debtors managed to settle arrears of up to PLN 1,000, one in six (16%) would disappear from this group. One in four of these small debtors have both a small amount of arrears with banks and other companies, but even so, the total does not exceed PLN 1,000, it was reported.
“Most debtors do not realise that even small arrears can have serious consequences. Some deliberately fail to pay a bill, believing that they have other, more important expenses in a given month. They are also often convinced that they will not suffer any consequences for being 300 or 500 zlotys in arrears. They deliberately do not pay their obligations on time, waiting until someone reminds them and only then do they pay the arrears. There is also a large group of Poles who do not manage their household budget very well and simply forget or sometimes do not realise that they have a bill to pay. The last group of unreliable debtors are those with questionable financial morals, who consciously fail to settle their debts and have no intention of doing so in the future,” commented BIG InfoMonitor CEO Slawomir Grzelczak.
Source: BIG InfoMonitor/BIK and ISBnews
