Colombia’s central bank has flagged a renewed build-up of household financial strain, reporting that debt service now absorbs 27.4% of disposable income—a level that combines obligations to regulated banks and to non-bank lenders such as fintechs and telecoms. The ratio had been broadly stable since 2023 after a sharp run-up during the 2021–22 credit expansion and rate-hiking cycle, but the latest data, covering September 2025 to March 2026, show borrowing accelerating relative to income just as household savings contracted. Governor Leonardo Villar told reporters that credit risk is re-emerging as a focus for financial authorities, with incipient deterioration visible in consumer lending.

The mechanics behind the shift are consistent across several economies. In Colombia, the central bank linked the repunte to consumption-driven growth, a strong labour market, rising remittances and an expansionary fiscal stance, all of which have supported credit demand even as rates remain elevated. The simultaneous decline in household saving amplifies vulnerability: a smaller buffer means any income shock translates more directly into missed payments. Analysts in Buenos Aires point to a parallel dynamic in Argentina, where high inflation and stagnant real incomes have pushed credit-card and personal-loan delinquencies to record levels, prompting a wave of provincial and public-bank refinancing schemes.

Those relief programmes carry their own risks. Argentine specialists caution that refinancing a credit-card balance often converts the debt into an enforceable legal title and layers on administrative fees, insurance and taxes that sharply raise the total financial cost, even when the headline rate appears lower. The same caution appears in Colombian financial-education guidance, which warns that multiple credit cards can segment spending usefully but easily become a trap if households treat the credit limit as supplementary income. In Israel, a different facet of household balance-sheet behaviour is drawing scrutiny: roughly 63% of directly held financial assets sit in current accounts and low-yield deposits, where they have been steadily eroded by cumulative inflation of about 18% since early 2021, even as the same households accept substantial equity exposure inside their pension funds.

Aggregate wealth figures can obscure these pressures. Spanish central bank data show household net financial assets reaching a record €2.66 trillion in the first quarter of 2026, up 9.3% year on year, while the household debt-to-GDP ratio fell to 42.5%, its lowest since 1999. Yet the composition of assets—still one-third in cash and deposits—suggests many families are not sharing fully in the revaluation gains that drove the headline increase. The next factual milestone to watch is whether the deterioration in consumer-credit quality that Colombia’s central bank has identified broadens to other loan segments, and whether the subsidised refinancing programmes launched by Argentine provinces and public banks succeed in reducing non-performing loans without simply extending the duration of unsustainable debts.