One of the post-protest deals that the country experienced in 2022 was refinancing and credit restructuring, and that benefited 19,816 private banking clients during the nine months that the Financial Policy and Regulation Committee ordered financial relief measures.

This mechanism was in effect until March 31. Only for the public financial sector, in this case BanEcuador, the deadline has been extended again until next June in order to continue settling debts that expired between January 1, 2020 -in the pandemic- and June 30, 2022 -in unemployment-.

Dues with BanEcuador can now be settled until June 30, 2023.

The Executive President of the Association of Private Banks of Ecuador (Assobanca), Marco Rodríguez, points out that loans for refinancing and restructuring are options that private banks have always offered to their clients who, for one reason or another, face some inconvenience in paying off their loans, ” in this way, they become tools to help their clients to honor the payment of their loans, and therefore they can more easily return the money, which ultimately belongs to the depositors”.

An example of this was the financial relief during the coronavirus pandemic, which amounted to $10 billion between March and June 2020, which represented 36% of the banks’ total loan portfolio at that time.

On this occasion, $564.89 million was refinanced or restructured between July 2022 and March 2023, corresponding to 22,673 operations from 19,816 clients (individuals and companies). This represents 1% of the total number of new credit transactions registered in the same nine-month period (2.9 million).

“In short, the bank continues to prudently and responsibly manage Ecuadorian deposits and is ready to offer its clients refinancing and restructuring alternatives, as well as novations, when necessary, analyzing case by case with technical criteria that enable the precautionary measures of their depositors,” Rodríguez points out.

Measures still in force

Pandemic help