‘Poor legal protection of creditors (i.e. no legal instruments to help them get their loans back) is one of the indicators of an unstable consumer lending market. Illegal salaries that remain untaxed are another indicator: in case the bad debt suit gets to court, the money will be deducted from the borrower’s legal salary (which is much less than what the person actually makes),’ Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch’s Private Customer Lending Director Vyacheslav Reshetnikov announced in the course of a round table discussion devoted to ways of enhancing Russia’s consumer lending market’s stability through educating people financially.

The agenda of the discussion covered issues related to the general population’s borrowing culture and ways of improving on it, ideas as to how the state should be involved in educating people financially, sharing financial organizations’ experience in the field of borrowing culture improvements, and expected payoffs.

According to the data available for January 2008, Sverdlovsk Region was one of the country’s leading consumer lending areas, as the region’s dwellers borrowed approximately 111 billion RUR from banks.

All those present at the discussion agreed that consumer lending policies need to grow stricter, while borrowers have to be faced with greater liability.