” Hello ? – Yeah, Justine, how are you? It’s Anthony! – Anthony??? – But yes, Antoine, 6e B to Pasteur, we were in the same class… well, you wouldn’t have €2,000? » The amateur canvasser is dismissed but all is well: Justine redirects the former friend to the new service of LCL (formerly Crédit Lyonnais). In “a few clicks”, “borrow up to 2,000 euros with your smartphone”, explains the announcer. In banking jargon, we speak of “instant minicredit”.
In very strong development
The ad is on the radio in a loop: fashion is for new credit solutions. It must be said that the consumer credit market itself is very wise, despite a tense context for household purchasing power with the return of inflation (see box) : according to the Banque de France, they grew by 3.6% in March, in the wake of what has been observed since the start of the year. A much less sustained level of growth than before the health crisis.
On the other hand, ” the market (…) mini-credits is experiencing very strong development”, let the institution know The cross. These offers do not obey the usual rules of consumer credit and are not counted as such: an exception is provided for in French legislation for sums of less than €200 or lent for less than three months.
In concrete terms, only two rules must be respected: the annual percentage rate of charge (APR) must be displayed and the latter must be lower than the wear rate set by the Banque de France. For a loan of up to €3,000, it amounts to 21.11% on April 1, 2022 – in the first quarter of 2022, the Banque de France notes that the average rate charged by credit institutions is 15.83% . On the other hand, it is not compulsory to consult the credit incident file.
drifts
Players are rushing into this segment. “The ease and speed with which consumers can access these financing solutions are likely to create the conditions for poorly controlled or even excessive debt for the most financially fragile”warns the Bank of France.
Some practices are questionable. At the end of March, the ACPR, the supervisory authority for the sector backed by the Banque de France, underlined“that the costs of all kinds paid by the subscribers (…) to obtain the sums promised under the conditions announced (…) must respect the limits set by the prohibition of usury. » In April 2021, the consumer defense association UFC-Que Choisir filed a complaint against three players in instant minicredit, Bling, Cashper and Floa Bank, for “deceptive marketing practices”. L’UFC conteste « the opacity of tariffs, which conceals real interest rates up to a hundred times higher than the usury rate”. Fees are pointed out in particular, presented by the operators as relating to the management of the file and therefore not included in the calculation of the interest rates. “Clearly they haven’t changed their practices since.”explains Matthieu Robin, responsible for monitoring banks for the UFC.
Algorithms at the heart of the game
Are these instant mini-credits the new Wild West? Some players are more transparent. LCL ensures that, on its aforementioned offer, the only costs range from 2 to 20 € depending on the amount borrowed, i.e. an APR of 5 to 13%. For this well-established player, the objective is elsewhere. “We lacked this feature on our application in the face of competition from neobanks”explains Yann Lhuissier, member of the executive committee.
Offer is for customers only. “These loans are cash facilitieshe continues. This allows you to deal with a large bill or a repair, for example. We are not in a system of request but of eligibility: we take the best rated customers, based on an evaluation of the functioning of their account. »
Younited, which presents itself as the “leading European player in instant credit”, dedicates nearly half of its 550 employees to the development of algorithms that allow risk analysis and whether or not to grant these loans. In the majority of cases, the borrower agrees to connect his bank account during his request: the statements are then scrutinized. Sport bets ? Recurring discoveries? “We go back nine months”, explains Geoffroy Guigou, the founder, who defends the virtue of his model: “This system allows us to allocate loans to people on fixed-term contracts – as long as their income is stable – which is impossible with traditional banking players. »