Debt is a structural feature of many European economies and for a lot of individuals it is simply not possible for them to manage without it, according to the latest research from Finaccord. As a result, European consumers are not rushing to pay off their debts, in spite of the troubled macro-economic picture in many countries.
Market research group, Finaccord, looked at debt across 20 European nations - namely, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK. For the 20 countries included in Finaccord's research consumer mortgage and non-mortgage loans outstanding totalled EUR 9.08trn at the end of 2011, up from EUR 8.03trn in 2007. Of the EUR 9.08trn total, EUR 7.35trn was attributable to mortgage lending and the balance of EUR 1.73trn to other forms of consumer len...
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