Loan fraud is not just about francs and WIBOR. You didn’t know about it

The edge is not easy to trace if it has been working for years and, moreover, is the creation of the so-called. institutions of public trust. Fraud is most difficult to detect when it is based on the “truths” of most economists. In this case, it constitutes - in public opinion - an indisputable axiom. It is precisely such insidious actions of the “system” and the financial sector that we are currently observing, and therefore we are dealing with scams on a large scale in credit policy.

Three scams are better than one…

So, let’s talk more about the banking scams that we fall victim to. For a very long time, no one was surprised by the presence of the WIBOR index in almost all loan agreements. The definition of this is also not suspicious: it is the determinant of the price of the so-called interbank loans, determined in a given period. So, WIBOR (presumably) shows what the current price of money is in the market. After all, as in every product sold, you need to determine the cost of its production (this is WIBOR), and then add a margin, which is the seller’s profit.

In our loan agreements, we most often meet the WIBOR 3M or WIBOR 6M indices, which should indicate at what cost banks (on a given day) take funds from each other for a period of 3 and 6 months, respectively. So far, everything sounds normal and nothing to worry about, right? There is only one “but” here. Well, for a long time, all banks have had excess liquidity (they have more funds for lending than they need), so … there are no such loans between banks!

Therefore, the WIBOR indicator is determined completely “from the ceiling”. In addition, the group that is responsible for determining this component of the interest rate on our loans is … the bankers themselves! Thus it took the form of price fixing, i. when “producers” agree among themselves - without any external restrictions and controls - how much they can earn from buyers.

Of course, it is in their interests to keep the WIBOR index as high as possible. Usually, “something from myself” is added to the current reference rate, i.e. from 0.1 percentage points. percentage (rare), up to more than 1 point percentage - what happened in the last year.

So we have already tracked scam No. 1 - the WIBOR index, which until the end of 2022 was the determinant of the installment amount, probably about 90 percent. loan agreements provided in PLN. This has happened in the period of … the last almost 30 years.

Credit scam number two: floating rate

WIBOR has already been identified by a large group of lawyers as a bank fraud. There has even become a fashion for processes against WIBOR, I discussed this topic in this study.

So far, however, it has never occurred to anyone to throw a rock at the banks, exposing their much bigger scam. I am referring to the commonly used variable rate when determining the amount of subsequent payments.

This trick works on the principle that if something worked “forever”, then it should be normal. And thus, without hesitation, we agreed that the loan installment can change absolutely freely: we are talking, of course, about its increase, not decrease. And this can happen even several years after the “purchase” of a banking product called a loan or a loan.

Or have you thought about what our lives would be like if the same rules applied to buying other products? A month ago, you were shopping at a discount store for five hundred zlotys, and now you get another bill - for the same purchases - with a hundred or two hundred zlotys surcharge. Because the seller currently has higher costs due to, for example, a Polish deal. Or you bought a car at a certain price, and every year the dealer makes you pay extra for this car, several thousand zlotys - if you don’t manage to sell it earlier.

That’s right: you can already see how screwed up you are… In any case, when buying any product or service, the purchase price is determined no later than the day of the transaction!

Perhaps it would be better this way: in almost all cases, because these obvious rules of fair selling do not work in the banking industry.

Hence the current, so numerous problems of borrowers who, when making a decision on issuing a loan, were guided by the amount of the installment. If, for example, when buying an apartment in 2020 with a specific and predictable income, you decide to take out a loan with a monthly payment of PLN 4,000. PLN, then you could cancel this transaction, knowing that today the fee for this account will be 9,000 PLN. zloty.

The situation described above, i.e. the widespread use of a floating rate in credit policy is a systemic search: taking into account the current legislation, for example, on consumer protection. However, this jump on our cash register is so firmly rooted in Polish banking that it does not raise any suspicion of the criminal nature of the described decision.

But that is not all. Here’s another systemic heist in broad daylight that we too humbly accepted.

Loan scam number three: NBP “fights” inflation

The curse of most borrowers is the very high interest rate currently in place, set by the Monetary Policy Board. Recall: from September 2021 to September 2022, “Jastshab” Glapinski announced as many as 11 additional increases. And since almost all loan agreements have a floating rate (see: description of scam # 2), installment obligations have increased dramatically.

If you think that maybe this makes sense, because one day inflation will fall there because of this, then you have again fallen for the system lie. However, see for yourself how easy it is to expose this lie.

If we’re going to fight inflation, let’s see where it comes from. This knowledge is not only easily accessible, but also understandable to ordinary people, you do not need to immediately be a professor of economics. In any study of inflation, you will find the following reasons for excessive price increases:

• Rising prices for raw materials in the world

• Rising prices for energy, gas and fuel (in the local market, i.e. in the country)

• Printing a significant amount of “blank” money

A horse with a scandal to the daredevil who finds a connection between the activities of the Monetary Policy Board and the elimination of the causes (listed above) of such high inflation.

If you want to read my thoughts and arguments, why do I think that in the current economic situation, there is nothing worse to do within the framework of the so-called. fight inflation rather than raise the cost of a loan, see my next post. You can also find this study on Wprost.pl.