Credit Expansion in Bolivia: Borrowers, Indebtedness and Mobility, 2010 – 2016

This document raises the following questions: How much of the variation in credit is explained by the inclusion of new borrowers? How much is attributed to the average indebtedness of existing borrowers? What characteristics do new borrowers have? And whose average indebtedness grew? What happened to the mobility of borrowers between entities? Based on information from the Supervisory Authority of the Financial System between 2010 and 2016, the work develops an accounting breakdown of the changes in the credit portfolio destined for natural persons. It identifies the quantity effect (number of net borrowers entering the system) and the debt effect (average indebtedness of existing borrowers), as well as a measure of the flow of migration of borrowers between financial entities and groups of them. One of the most important results indicates that half of the increase in year-on-year credit corresponds to new borrowers, while the other half is attributed to indebtedness of existing ones. Likewise, during the analysis period, the flow of migration of borrowers from microfinance institutions to commercial ones dominated.