2023-05-29 19:25:48
This level is 7 percentage points higher than the average 54.4% registered in May 2022.
It is increasingly more expensive to use credit cards to purchase a product in installments, because according to data from the Superintendency of Banking, Insurance and AFPthe average interest rate reaches 61.4%.
Said average exceeds that of May 2022 by 7 percentage points (54.4%) and by eleven percentage points that of the same month in 2021. This increase is due to the attempts of the Central Reserve Bank to control inflation referred to the economist Arturo García, professor of Finance at Esan.
The teacher recalled that the benchmark interest rate it went from 0.25% in mid-2021 to 7.75% in January 2023, during the last four months this rate remained stable; although the BCR clarified that this does not mean the end of the rate increase.
But this rise, although it seeks to curb inflation, has an impact on the rates of the different credits offered by the financial market, such as those of the cards and the higher it is, the more interest is charged for any purchase made.
For his part, Jorge Luis Ojeda, a professor of Finance at UPC, explained that there is another factor that influences and that is the effect of the law of caps on interest rates. The teacher explained that this norm does not allow charging more interest to the most risky segments and that is why the entities raise the rates to the other segments, thereby also recovering the loss of part of the user market that can no longer access credit .
For Arturo García, no further increases in the reference interest rate are expected from the BCR, so interest rates would have reached “their ceiling”, “what is expected is a drop in the coming months,” he specified. .
But, as long as the value of the rate does not fall, what can we do?
The finance expert, Jorge Carrillo, explained that in order not to create a disorder in expenses, it is preferable to have a maximum of two credit cards. “An excessive number can increase your potential debt and make you a risk user.”
To avoid interest rates it is necessary to make direct payments and cancel everything or the same day or the same month, so you can take advantage of the benefits of the cards.
And most importantly, know your billing cycle and pay your cards before the cutoff.
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