August 21, 2014. In the first half of 2014, the number of claims relating to non-payment of bank loans issued to private individuals that were laid with Sverdlovsk Region-based courts rose by 48.6%, judge of Sverdlovsk Region Court Maria Kulikova said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg.

According to Kulikova, more than 16,700 such cases were heard in courts in the twelve months of 2013; whereas this year, the figure came to over 14,600 cases in the first half of the year alone.

‘This means we can state the number of claims relating to loan enforcement started going up in the second half of 2013. Consequently, the amount of money collected is increasing as well: the figure stood at approximately 8.6bn RUR last year and to as much as 6bn RUR in the first half of 2014 alone,’ Kulikova said.

Deputy Chairman of Ural Banking Union Evgeniy Bolotin points out that this state of affairs is directly related to the coming into effect of the Consumer Lending Act on July 1.

‘When the bill was still being discussed and drafted, banks decided to play it safe and instituted loan enforcement proceedings involving their customers. This has to do with the fact that the new law sets very strict limits to ways in which a bank can deal with its debtors,’ Bolotin explained.