New inflection of the ministry for the banks. After the usury rate, a new battle is brewing around the rules conditioning access to credit. And once again, the banks have just scored a point, Bercy having announced that it is considering easing for the month of June. Faced with a decline in the granting of real estate loans, the ministry wants to ensure that the standards aimed at protecting against over-indebtedness “do not become an obstacle to access to credit”, indicates Bercy in a statement sent Tuesday to the ‘AFP and which confirms information from Echos.
“At the request of the Minister [Bruno Le Maire]evaluation work is being carried out in conjunction with the Banque de France, the HCSF [Haut conseil à la stabilité financière, qui associe entre autres le ministère de l’Économie et la Banque de France] and all of the players concerned,” continues Bercy the day after a meeting with the French Banking Federation and one month after the High Council deemed the current rules satisfactory.
The cheapest mortgage in Europe
Since January 1, 2022, French banks must meet the following criteria, defined by the HCSF, to grant a mortgage: an effort rate, i.e. the total amount of housing-related expenses reported income, of 35% maximum and a debt period of 27 years at most, for certain cases (such as work prior to moving in). However, establishments have the possibility of derogating from these criteria for 20% of loans, provided that these derogations essentially concern the acquisition of a main residence and aim in a third of cases to support first-time buyers.
Today, this “margin of flexibility is very far from being saturated, at 14.5%”, reacts to AFP the Banque de France, recalling that “mortgage is the most abundant and the least dear to Europe today”. If changes were to be announced, they would be announced at the next HCSF meeting in June.
Open dialog
For its part, the French Banking Federation (FBF) stresses that the “daily implementation” of the HCSF criteria “can be complex in management”. “The profession shares Bercy’s proposal to open a dialogue on the subject”, she adds, while evoking “granting criteria specific to banks which are perfectly adapted and would make it possible to take more clients. »
Behind this formulation, the FBF evokes without directly mentioning the remainder to live, a criterion regularly defended by the banks, and which in certain cases could replace the rate of effort. Unlike the debt ratio, this takes into account the amount of money left to households for their current expenses, after the payment of debts. This method of calculation, so far rejected by the HCSF, because considered too subjective, rather benefits high incomes.
Numbers War
Whether to ease or not reveals the clash between various players regarding the health of the real estate sector. Faced with professionals in this sector who are alarmed, saying they fear a collapse, François Villeroy de Galhau, rather evokes a normalization after a record year 2021.
According to the CSA/Credit Logement Observatory, the number of loans granted fell by 20.5% compared to the previous year, when the Banque de France communicated on a drop of 3%. For the Ministry of the Economy, “the decrease in the distribution of credit is explained above all by the rise in rates” but it is necessary to be “very attentive to feedback from the field” to ensure that the regulations “do not become an obstacle to access to credit and therefore to the property of households that are however solvent”.