Payment defaults on steep rise
In the first half of the year some 200,000 Finns were added to a register of payment defaulters. That figure is an all-time high. Altogether some one million new payment defaults by individuals were registered.
The number private debts put out to collection rose to more than a million in the period from January to June, some 25 percent more than during the corresponding period in 2011.
These debts were run up by some 200,000 Finns, a record number. That figure is a 17 percent increase on the number for the same time last year.
A total of some 340,000 people are now on the payment defaults register, which is maintained by the Suomen Asiakastieto credit rating agency. This represents a rise of around 12,500 over the last year.
Businesses have also been struggling to pay their bills, but not quite as much as private individuals. According to Suomen Asiakastieto, business debts sold for collection increasingly often go unrecovered.
Some 26,000 businesses had at least one payment default added to the register in the first half of the year, an increase of some nine percent year-on-year. Around 51,000 businesses are currently on the payment default register.
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