A kind of debt epidemic is happening in Serbia. Citizens have taken the most loans in dinars, among which cash loans are leading, since 2008, when there was a global economic crisis.
Patching holes, loan on loan, kredit who needs to close the second loan - this is how life is in Serbia this year.
It's official. average earnings for May 2025 was 107.705 dinars, according to the data of the Republic Institute of Statistics. However, half of the citizens in the country actually earn less than 84.000 dinars, with which they cannot even pay for basic food and necessities.
That's why they turn to quick fixes. Thus, in the second quarter of this year, the largest three-month growth of new loans in dinars was recorded, largely due to cash loans, which has not happened since the fall of 2008. At that time, citizens resorted to loans due to the dizzying global collapse of finances - the World Economic Crisis.
According to the data of the Momentum brokerage house, in the last three months of 2024, cash loans worth 3,5 billion dinars were taken in Serbia, while in April, May and June 2025, as many as 46,8 billion dinars worth of cash loans were taken.
Nobody listened.
Seventeen years later, the new rush to cash loans is the result of the policy of the National Bank of Serbia.
"Citizens who are over-indebted are dealing with the consequences because the governor of the NBS has made it possible for banks to grant cash loans for longer than 12 months," explains Đorđe Đukić, professor of banking at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade. "That period was constantly increasing and it reached five years, for which it is possible to take a cash loan."
This kind of banking policy, Đukić adds, has brought citizens into debt slavery, because they take out new loans to repay old debts.
Cash loans in Serbia are obtained very quickly, in a large number of cases clients do not even have to go to the bank, nor are there particularly rigorous criteria for the consumer to prove that he will be able to repay the loan. However, interest rates are significantly higher than in Western European countries.
In the meantime, the process of impoverishment of people began due to high inflation and rising food prices. Although Đukić is one of the few who warned the NBS that it must limit the deadline for taking cash loans, the governor Jorgovanka Tabakovic, who is serving her third term at the head of this institution, ignored these advices.
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"Once a state measure is missed and does not act preventively, the consequences are long-term," says the expert professor of economics. "Thus, we are getting a situation that is unprecedented in other countries, namely that cash loans are dominant in terms of amount, that they have surpassed housing loans as well."
Filling the household budget
The growth of credit activity in dinars in the country, explains broker Nenad Gujaničić, is mainly related to cash loans of citizens and loans for businessmen's liquidity.
"It should be the opposite - that investment loans and loans for housing loans take the lead," Gujaničić told "Vreme". "It can be an indicator of the population's spending power. Although not everyone takes loans to survive, Serbian citizens largely go for cash loans when the household budget needs to be filled."
An additional indicator will be the new results for the third quarter of 2025, when the data on borrowing by citizens during annual vacations or preparation for school will be received.
"If cash loans continue to grow, consumers will be in serious trouble," Gujanicic added. "But the fact is that more than a million people in the country earn less than 80.000 dinars, and that's without pensioners. They can't provide much for their families with that amount, so they resort to quick and expensive loans."
It won't be any different.
Jorgovanka Tabaković, however, continues with similar measures this fall.
As part of the September benefits for the people of Aleksandar Vučić, we also get a new interest limit for cash loans. Thus, the National Bank of Serbia ordered private banks to update their offers of consumer, cash and housing loans by September 15, 2025 so that they offer loans under more favorable conditions to people with regular monthly incomes of up to 100.000 dinars.
Although it seems that things will be better for the users of these loans because they will pay less interest - experts warn that banks always find a way to make a profit.
"Banks in Serbia recorded extremely high profits in the record value of 1,3 billion euros last year," warns Professor Đukić, who adds that foreign banks in the country should not be blamed for finding ways to make money.
This kind of policy never gives results, the comparative policy of countries where similar measures have already been tried tells us, adds the professor of the Faculty of Economics.
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