Magazine: Faith in loans

According to the Deloitte-Scale BankIndex survey, Hungarian consumers’ attitude towards the banking system and banking services kept improving last year. Deloitte Zrt. partner Ákos Demeter told that the level of optimism about taking out loans hasn’t been this high for 4 years: 70,000-80,000 consumers said in 2015 that they would apply for loans more confidently in the new year. Expectations in connection with saving money and consumption also got better.

When it comes to using banking services, more than 30 percent of customers still pick from the offers of only one bank and not more. Nearly 37 percent of them don’t read the detailed information on the costs of these services. More loans were placed in 2015 than before but this number was still lower than in 2009. Forint-based home loans were placed in the value of more than HUF 30 billion. Although consumer optimism about savings increased, the proportion of those with savings reduced to 10.1 percent. In line with this a higher proportion of respondents, 56.6 percent said it is unlikely that they would save more money in 2016. About 82 percent of consumers don’t plan to gather information about banking services.

The use of electronic payment methods is spreading slowly. Despite the fact that the level of internet penetration is high in Hungary, people aren’t really interested new-type banking services. It is very important information for banks that 36 percent of consumers see no significant difference between banks.