Poll: Czechs increasingly cautious about taking loans

Prague, Feb 26 (CTK) - A growing number of Czechs consider it unacceptable to burden their households with debts, and they are particularly unwilling to take loans to finance vacations and consumer goods, while loans for housing, running business or studies are more acceptable, according to a poll carried out by the CVVM centre.

A loan for housing is acceptable for 85 percent of Czechs, down by 6 percentage points against last year. Such a loan is unacceptable for 14 percent of Czechs, 6 points more than a year ago.

One tenth of respondents would be willing to take a loan to finance their vacations. Their percentage has nevertheless dropped by 2 percentage points on the year, while the share of people who consider such a loan unacceptable has grown by 2 percentage points to 88 percent.

According to data from the Czech National Bank (CNB), debts of Czech households at banks and financial institutions rose by nearly Kc6.8bn to Kc1,162bn month-on-month in December 2012. Year-on-years, the debt were about Kc43.8bn higher.

According ot PwC leading partner Petr Kriz, Czech household debt grew at a lower pace than in the previous decade but still faster than inflation and prices of real estate.

Compared with the rest of Europe, Czech household debt is rather below-average, Kriz said.

According to CVVM, 17 percent of respondents have problems to repay their loans, the same percentage as last year. For 41 percent of respondents it is very hard to repay loans, compared with 37 percent last year.

The poll was conducted among 1,032 respondents over 15 on January 14-21.

loan 2012 acceptable/unacceptable 2013 acceptable/unacceptable
for housing 91/8 85/14
for business 69/24 65/28
for studies 64/30 64/33
for consumer goods, e.g. refrigerator, washing machine, TV set, furniture etc. k 55/44 49/49
for car 53/45 49/48
for vacation 12/86 10/88

Source: CVVM