A survey conducted by Millward Brown SMG/KRC shows that the average Polish debtor is a 45-year-old male with income below average and a vocational or high-school education. The research was conducted last year for Polish debt collecting company KRUK – which, according to daily Rzeczpospolita, had the second-largest share of the market last year – and was based on information about that firm’s debtors.

Gender, location, education

According to the research, men fell into debt more often than women (60-40 percent), and most debtors belonged to the 46-55 (30 percent) age group, according to the report. The largest concentration of debtors lived in the Silesia and in Mazowieckie voivodships (15 and 30 percent respectively), while residents from the Opolskie and Świętokrzyskie voivodships were less likely to be in debt – only one percent of KRUK debtors lived in these regions.

“Such knowledge about debtors is invaluable from the point of view of a debt collecting company,” said Agnieszka Kułton, a member of the board and director of the liability management department at KRUK. “Knowing their financial problems and material situation, we have a larger chance of finding a correct repayment solution both for the debtor and the creditor,” she added.

Debtors had most often completed vocational education (40 percent) or high school education (32 percent), while just eight percent had graduated from university. Meanwhile, most debtors lived in cities (76 percent).

Job, family, attitude

In addition, every fifth indebted person did not work at all, and 19 percent received disability or retirement payments. The remainder (58 percent) made a living thanks to permanent or temporary jobs.

Among the latter, despite having a steady salary, their monthly income tended to be lower than average. Around 40 percent of debtors had a monthly income of below zł.600, while the average salary in 2008 was zł.3,241.81. Almost half of those surveyed admitted that their incomes are lower than zł.500 per single person in the family and every fifth person in debt had less than zł.100 a month per household member.

In terms of family situation, at least 20 percent of debtors maintain a family of five or more people, including him/herself.

A bad financial situation was blamed for the cause of debt in almost half of the cases. Every third debtor was not able to pay his loans because of losing a job, while 14 percent of people in debt did not pay because of an accident or an illness.

The Millward Brown SMG/KRC report found that there were two types of attitudes towards debt among those surveyed. One group felt responsible for the debt, agreeing that honest people should pay their loans. The other group was not willing to pay at all, blaming creditors, and considered the debt to be unjust, expired and of relatively little value to the creditor.