Milica T. got fired last year. The next day she went to the bank and took 1500 euros in a consumer loan and went to Spain n a vacation. Besides the fake name, the story is completely authentic, so the question is that also an authentic response to crisis or, maybe, a wider reflection of the national life philosophy or is it a jus an exception, an isolated case.
Someone might ask how is it possible, or why are the banks giving a loan to someone for whom it is clearly uncertain if it will be able to pay it back, but the banks are not to blame here. They follow their interests; the bank is not a kindergarten, nor is it a church, even though the churches are beginning to look more like financial institutions.
The newspapers are just reflecting the schizophrenic situation in reality: on one hand you have texts on how half of the citizens of Serbia isn’t paying its bills, and on the other how the other half is ready to immigrate or invade Greece, Turkey and other coastal destinations.
You get the sense that there is a rush for the tourist agencies. Are those “halves” even equal, or is the first one much bigger, but the second one is much more audible?
Or maybe those two groups overlap: because there is a lot of those which, firstly, do not pay their bills, and then go to the bank, take out a loan and go for a vacation. Just like Scarlet O’Hara’s motto: “I will cry tomorrow”. Or – at the fall, when I have to start paying the installments.
In the last 15 days the banks are working hard while the serbs are gallantly taking loans for a ten-day leisure. And the most expensive, cash, loans, where the interests can raise up to 34 percent a year if the loan is in dinars.
„Spring and the beginning of summer are always characterized by a higher demand for cash and consumer loans. That is the case in this year too. If they decide to pay their tourist arrangement by a loan, the citizens usually decide to take the cash loans.
The average amount of the loans is usually around 100.000 dinars, and they usually chose the 36 months payback plan”, we were told in the biggest domestic bank, Intesa.
It is not much different in the other banks. The economic crisis which brought the citizens to the verge of existence, as can be heard nowadays, hasn’t influenced their appetites for vacations. The one that doesn’t have it, simply loans it.
„The cash loans enable citizens to spend money more freely, with the possibility of using one part of the loan to pay the arrangement, and the other for spending while on vacation”, says Miroslav Rebic, a member of the board of executives of Societe Generale Bank, for the Novi magazin.
Convinced that they are at least humbly spending the loaned money, Novi magazin asked the tourist agencies how are the cheapest vacations paid for. And there is no end to our surprises.