Informe de Otros Proveedores No Financieros de Crédito

The purpose of this report is to analyse the evolution of financing granted by non-financial entities that constitute a heterogeneous group of companies called “Other non-financial credit providers”: cooperatives and mutuals, appliance sales companies and fintechs, among others.

New regulation | In October 2020, the BCRA introduced significant modifications to the regulation of OPNFCs that basically imply the obligation to register as OPNFCs
for most non-financial credit companies (even when they do not receive financing from financial institutions) and compliance with provisions that grant greater protection to users of financial services.
OPNFC Number | In the last two years, the number of OPNFCs registered with the BCRA has grown significantly, reaching a total of 323 companies in January of this year, compared to 235 suppliers at the end of 2018. Between June 2020 and January 2021, 50 new suppliers were
registered, while 9 were deregistered. The enrollment of 50 new providers is the highest registration since the second half of 2018 and more than double the average of the previous three semesters.
Total debtors | The number of people who took credit from the OPNFCs reached 6.1 million in October 2020, almost entirely being individuals.
Exclusive debtors | On the other hand, the number of people who were exclusively debtors of the OPNFCs (i.e., who in turn did not have debt with the financial system) was approximately 2.8 million people.
Comparison with the financial system | If we consider that financial institutions had credit assistance to 13.4 million individuals in October 2020, this implies that the exclusive debtors of the OPNFCs represented around 20% of
the debtors of the financial institutions.
Debtors Shared with the Financial System | The total number of OPNFC customers who also had debt with the financial system fell from 4.3 million people in January 2018 to 3.4 million customers in October 2020.
Amount of financing | The number of OPNFCs that reported their portfolio to the BCRA reached 215 companies in October 2020, registering financing balances of $195,000 million. Excluding credit card assistance, the balance owed to
OPNFCs was $88 billion.
Comparison with the financial system | In the first ten months of 2020, the balance of financing from OPNFCs averaged 8.5% of the total loans in pesos of the financial system to individuals and SMEs (excluding credit card financing in all cases).
Debtors’ Income Profile | The fact that in comparison with the financial system the proportion of people represents a higher percentage than that of financing (20% versus 8.5%), together with the credit practice of linking the amount financed with the debtor’s ability to repay, allows us to assume that the OPNFCs
would serve, on average, a segment of the population that has lower and irregular incomes than the average income of the customer of the financial system.
Funding Trends | In the last three years, the evolution of OPNFC loans had a marked downward trend, with a cumulative reduction of 38% in real terms between January 2018 and October 2020. This contraction in the balances
owed was associated with the fall in real income that was observed from the second quarter of 2018 and that tended to stabilize at the beginning of 2020, and even rise during the first months of that year (mainly in wage income
), and then fall temporarily at the beginning of the pandemic. although still above the historic low of 2019. In addition, specific factors that characterize OPNFCs, such as the income segment they serve and a certain relative importance of companies selling durable consumer goods (such as household appliances) had a particular impact.