The French have always been more crickets and ants that the crisis has reinforced their distrust of credit. Statistics released yesterday by the FSA, the association of financial companies show a net decline of credit extended by institutions.
Credits distributed to households fell from 13.3% in 2009, which represents the largest drop recorded in 45 years time tracking statistics. In 2008, the decline was 2.8%. Last year, special schools and have provided 38 billion euros of new funds, against 43.8 billion a year earlier.
The downturn that began in autumn 2008 was accelerated until spring 2009 (-12.4% in the first quarter and -18.7% in the second) before slowing down from the was (-16% and -5.5% in the fourth quarter).
These are personal loans which have fallen the most, specialized institutions have distributed 22.8% lower than a year earlier. The revolving loan decreased by 11.2%.
The auto loans are better off: they are down only 4% over the year and jumped over the last two months of the year. The scrapping bonus has pushed the French to change their car which is reflected in the credits: they increased from 15.7% last quarter. Finally, funding of home appliances (consumer electronics and furniture) were melted from 13.3% in 2009.
These figures may be explained by a smaller French appetite for credit, but also by increasing the rate of refusal of certain institutions (Cetelem number one industry in this case) and by increased competition from traditional banking networks.Banks operate more than before because the customer relationship by offering consumer loans. Member firms of the FSA are in fact nearly 60% of consumer credit and almost all renewable credits.