Indebtedness; the devil among us

According to the statistics, total past due loans – ones tainted by arrears - increased significantly by 52.9 percent to P3.2 billion in the year to December 2014 while non-performing loans also grew significantly by 12.1 percent to P1.6 billion as at December 31, 2014.

From the P45 billion that commercial banks have lent out as at June 2015, the lion’s share, 58 percent or P26 billion, has been taken up by individuals. Most worrying for financial planners is that, of the total debt owed by households, over P16 billion is unsecured by assets such as property and motor vehicles.