ArmInfo. The Central Bank of Armenia is considering introducing a coefficient for calculating the payment to income ratio for commercial banks and credit companies of the Republic of Armenia. On November 29, Andranik Grigoryan, Head of the Department for Sustainable Development of the Financial System of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia, announced this at a conference dedicated to financial literacy and lending organized by the initiative of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs.
As he noted, the need to introduce an indicator of PTI ( payment to income) is determined by the intention to protect borrowers, in particular during applying for consumer loans of all types, including "quick" loans, mortgages, payments which subsequently place a heavy burden on their shoulders. As explained by Grigoryan, PTI is the ratio of monthly loan payments to the monthly income of the borrower. In this regard, he drew attention to the fact that the borrower himself can't assess the load he will ultimately receive if a loan is approved: "Therefore, we want to resolve this issue by introducing a similar coefficient".
In her turn, the RA financial ombudsman Piruz Sargsyan noted that the most urgent problems that citizens turn to the office of the financial mediator concern consumer loans, namely, non-informing or untimely informing of citizens. The second group of problems relates to mechanisms for calculating interest rates, fines and penalties. At the same time, according to the financial ombudsman, many complaints come from individuals acting as guarantors of loans.
In this context, the head of the Union of Credit Companies of the Republic of Armenia Khoren Kerobyan drew attention to the extremely poor financial literacy of residents of remote settlements, despite a number of ongoing Central Bank programs in rural areas of the Republic of Armenia.
