Swiss franc theme continuously flickers in Western media. The stability of franc exchange rate backfired not only on the Swiss, but on the other Europeans as well, writes Swissinfo.ch.
As it was written in “Lietuvos Žinios”, Eastern European housing owners, who pay their loans in Swiss francs, found themselves in a tricky situation prompting the government to take urgent action. In most of the countries confusion regarding the repayments of loans taken in francs led to banks not fulfilling their obligations. Austria is in a particularly bad position because of unreasonable speculation of exchange rates before the financial crisis.
Citizens of Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania and Croatia willingly took loans in Swiss francs up to the economic collapse in 2008. Ordinary people took loans in this currency as it was stable and there were only small interest rates to pay.
Lots of people did not even suspect that they were playing a dangerous game until this little trick turned against them when the value of franc began to grow in comparison with the currencies of their own countries. Home owners suddenly had to pay ever increasing instalments. In some cases all they could do was to watch helplessly how their loans became higher than the housing prices.
Until the beginning of economic crisis about two-thirds of all loans in Hungary were taken in Swiss francs. In Poland there were more than a half of all loans taken in this currency. In other Eastern European and Baltic countries this figure was also high, delfi.lt reported on 24 August.
