In the summer of 2025, Aleksandar Vučić gave out a lot of money when he felt the pulse of the voters to go to the polls, but it turned out that it was not enough for people to live on. The latest data show that the borrowing explosion continues
Consumers in Serbia are increasingly in debt.
Regardless of the fact that SNS was in the pre-election campaign last summer introduced numerous economic benefits for pensioners and other potential voters, people after them increasingly turned to forced and fast cash lending.
Thus, the total loans granted to the economy and citizens increased by 175 billion dinars in the second quarter of 2026, with the majority of the billion dinars related to household borrowing, according to the report of the National Bank of Serbia on the dinarization of the financial system.
The structure of new loans shows that both citizens and companies focused the largest part of the new debt on short-term and cash arrangements. As a rule, such loans serve to finance everyday obligations.
According to the report of the National Bank of Serbia, 240 billion dinars of new dinar loans were granted to the population during the second quarter. That is almost 22 billion dinars, or 9,9 percent, more than in the first three months of this year. In the report, the NBS assessed that loans to households were approved in the second quarter "in an extremely high amount in both currencies".
When it comes to the structure of borrowing by citizens, the biggest growth was recorded in cash loans, which make up 87 percent of all newly approved dinar loans to households.
The share of dinars in total placements to the population reached a record 56,9 percent.
The average interest rate on all newly approved loans was 6,5 percent, which is 0,1 percentage point higher than at the end of the previous quarter. The increase was primarily due to the increase in interest on foreign currency loans, which increased by 0,3 percentage points, to 5,1 percent. This was influenced by expectations, and then by the European Central Bank (ECB) raising reference interest rates in the second half of June.
Interest rates on dinar loans rose slightly less, by 0,1 percentage point, reaching eight percent.
The key measures that were included in "Vučić's" economic package are limiting trade margins to a maximum of 20 percent for about 3.000 products distributed in 23 groups in large retail chains, as well as limiting interest rates on cash loans to a maximum of 7,5 percent for incomes up to 100.000 dinars, as well as reducing the nominal interest rate on housing loans by 0,50 index points.
A rule was introduced that the executors could not seize a single property up to 60 square meters, and there were also lower prices for firewood and additional discounts for electricity for socially vulnerable categories and pensioners, all of which came from the state treasury, that is, from public companies.
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