15 May 2020 - 4 min Reading time
Two clear financial trends are emerging during the corona crisis:
The banks continue to fully support consumers, companies and self-employed people who are under financial pressure due to the corona crisis. For example, in the last month and a half they granted more than 113,000 payment deferrals to private individuals for their mortgage loans. The total underlying credit volume amounts to 11.7 billion euros or an average of 103,000 euros per loan.
The banks have also granted more than 122,000 deferments of payments for business loans since March 31. This concerns a total underlying credit volume of 19 billion euros or an average of 155,000 per credit. More than 80% of the number of payment deferrals are granted to SMEs and the self-employed.
Anyone experiencing financial problems due to the corona crisis is asked to contact their bank as soon as possible. The appropriate solutions can be found together.
To contain the spread of the coronavirus, traders and banks are asking for digital payments as much as possible. Paying by card and smartphone is therefore an extremely safe and hygienic way to pay for purchases, especially if it is done contactless. The Belgian seems to have adjusted his payment behavior accordingly.
Because a number of stores were closed until recently due to the corona crisis, the total number of card payments in a physical point of sale fell for several weeks. However, the decline in the number of cash withdrawals continued even more strongly. In recent weeks, both card payments and cash withdrawals have increased again, but card payments maintain their lead.
This seems to indicate that Belgians currently use their cards more often than pay in cash.
Febelfin is already calling on people to continue paying digitally (via card and smartphone) as much as possible, even now that most shops have reopened their doors and contact professions will restart.
Deze cijfers zijn ook terug te vinden in de coronamonitor (only available in Dutch and French)