UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 1, 2015. The number of private individuals who might actually fit all the requirements set forth in the private bankruptcy law (this one comes into force on October 1, 2015) has gone up by 1.5 times since the beginning of the year and now comes to 460,000 people, National Bureau of Credit History reports.

The figure indicates the number of people with debts of over 500,000 RUR that haven’t been paid for over ninety days. There were no more than 300,000 such people in Russia last December.

The Bureau feels the increase has been due to Russia’s current economic situation and the resulting decline of the population’s factual income, which means they are finding it increasingly more difficult to handle their liabilities. In fact, their credit health index (something the Bureau assesses on a regular basis) has gone dramatically down, which is another indicator of financial hardships.

Debts on unsecured loans are the potential bankrupts’ primary characteristic. Things look much better in the secured loan segment than they do in the consumer loan and credit card loan ones. Only around 3% to 7% of debts turn into non-performing loans in the secured loan segment (namely, 3% of mortgages and 7% of car loans), while as many as up to 15% of unsecured loans turn into NPLs.