Doomsday Ticket Office: new fees for MFIs will inflate the black lender market
The new foreclosure rules may seriously reshape the microloan market. Due to the fee of 15,000 rubles for bailiff services, its volume risks being reduced by 15-20%, according to a letter from NAPCA to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko, which was reviewed by Izvestia. In order not to incur additional costs, MFIs will start cutting off risky clients en masse. As a result, thousands of people may be left without legal loans and turn to black creditors, where they are accustomed to knocking out debts using completely different methods.
Why the introduction of duties will hit the market
Changing the rules of debt collection may lead to the transfer of MFIs' clients to the gray zone and to an increase in illegal lending. This follows from a letter from the National Association of Collection Agencies (NAPCA) addressed to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko, which turned out to be at the disposal of Izvestia. The organization confirmed its authenticity.
The initiative may seriously change the procedure for debt collection by banks, microfinance organizations (MFIs) and collectors. The bill proposes to set a fee of 15,000 rubles for each appeal to the Federal Bailiff Service. In addition, creditors will be able to transfer the debt to bailiffs only one year after the appearance of a delay or purchase of the right of claim.
The Ministry of Justice proposed these changes at the end of 2024. The bills have now been submitted to the government for consideration, after which they can be submitted to the State Duma.
The introduction of new fees for applying to the FSSP will particularly affect the microfinance market. According to the NBKI, the average loan amount in MFIs is about 19.5 thousand rubles, and the classic "payday loan" is about 12 thousand rubles. In such circumstances, a fee of 15,000 rubles actually makes it economically unprofitable to collect most small debts, said Vasily Kutyin, Ingo Bank's Director of Analytics.
Because of this, MFIs will be forced to select borrowers more carefully, reduce the number of approvals and increase customer requirements in order to reduce the risk of non-repayment, says Igor Dodonov, an analyst at Finam Financial Group.
The bill is currently being discussed without full consultations with market participants, the press service of the SRO MIR told Izvestia. The organization considers it unfair to impose additional costs on the creditor, since the FSSP remains the only state mechanism for the enforcement of court decisions.
Why can borrowers go to illegal immigrants
The main consequence of the introduction of new rules may be a reduction in the issuance of microloans, said Valeria Popova, senior analyst at the investment company Rikom-Trust. The work of MFIs will have to be significantly restructured: if the foreclosure procedure sharply increases in price, it will be easier for lenders not to give money to the most risky borrowers.
To compensate for the new costs, MFIs will select clients more carefully, reject applications more often and reduce loan amounts, Ekaterina Kazak, CEO of Cyberbird Fintech Group, confirmed. As a result, it will become more difficult for many Russians to get a loan.
At the same time, the need for loans from the population will not disappear because of this. As a rule, microloans are issued to cover urgent household expenses, such as paying for utilities, buying medicines, or making it to a salary, said economist Andrei Barkhota. The financial situation of such clients, according to him, remains extremely unstable. At the same time, the share of borrowers who take out new loans to repay old ones has increased in recent years, which only increases the debt burden.
Such loans are most often issued by people with low incomes, young people under the age of 30, and often pensioners, said Natalia Milchakova, a leading analyst at Freedom Finance Global. Often, before applying to an MFI, they have already been refused by the bank, so they have practically no other sources of borrowed funds. If they lose access to legal loans, they may well go into a gray area.
How the illegal lending market works
The introduction of fees for applying to the FSSP may reduce the volume of the legal market. Even under a conservative scenario, the volume of microfinance will decrease by 15-20%, according to NAPCA's letter.
The most vulnerable clients of MFIs who are in dire need of borrowed funds may switch to black lenders, Natalia Milchakova said. Their activities are not regulated by the authorities, and the methods of collection are much tougher.
In 2025 alone, the Bank of Russia identified more than 1,100 illegal creditors, and in 2026 their number continued to grow, Izvestia previously wrote.
More and more of these players go completely online and advertise loans through social networks. According to the Central Bank, in the first quarter alone, more than 1.3 thousand illegal resources were blocked, including over 800 pages on social networks. Offline, black lenders most often operate as pseudo pawn shops and thrift stores.
Illegal creditors usually work in tandem with black collectors. The terms of their loans are opaque, the rates exceed legal limits, and the methods of collection include threats and withdrawal of collateral, the press service of the Central Bank reported earlier. The regulator receives complaints that illegal lenders use borrowers' personal data to exert pressure. They find information about relatives and friends through social media, send them messages about debts, and in some cases resort to direct threats, such as promising to harm the debtor's loved ones or burn down their only home.
The mass departure of customers to illegal creditors will negate the long-term efforts of the state and the market to clean up the industry, said Artem Bykov, CEO of Moneyman earlier. Outside the legal field, the borrower is effectively left without any protection, because the amount of debt there is limited only by the appetites of intruders.
What can relieve bailiffs
The Federal Bailiff Service is really overloaded today, follows from NAPCA's letter addressed to Dmitry Grigorenko. But the association is confident that this problem should be solved taking into account the interests of all participants in the lending market.
One option is to make the duty not fixed, but to link it to the amount of debt, says Dmitry Grigoriev, an expert at the Stolypin Institute of Growth Economics. It is also acceptable to introduce increased tariffs only for mass and repeat requests.
Another option is to use foreign practice, added the director of Customer Service and Collection at DOM Bank.Kirill Malinovsky, Russian Federation. In some countries, private bailiffs work alongside government bailiffs, whose activities are regulated by the state. This reduces the burden on the relevant authority and the budget, while preserving the possibility of legal debt collection for creditors.
The best solution may be the gradual introduction of new rules, says Ivan Uklein, Senior Director for Credit Institution Ratings at Expert RA agency. At the first stage, in his opinion, the amount of the fee can be set at 1.5–2 thousand rubles, and the mandatory period for self-collection can be reduced from one year to three to six months.
According to experts, this approach will simultaneously reduce the burden on the FSSF, maintain the availability of legal microfinance and prevent further growth of the shadow market.
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