The Citizens Party filed a lawsuit against Liberty Bank in the Tbilisi City Court today. The plaintiffs are pensioners under the age of 70, and the subject of the dispute is “overdraft” contracts.
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Lawyer Giorgi Rekhviashvili, a member of Citizens, explains that with the lawsuit, they demand the “overdraft” agreements be declared invalid and the obligation considered fulfilled.
“Pensioners have already covered three times more than the amount they took out in 2019, yet not a single GEL of the principal has been deducted during these five years. We demand the invalidity of the agreements and the consideration of the paid amount as fulfilling the obligation. If the court grants our request, the decision will set a precedent and impact other pensioners as well.
There is also another circumstance: before filing a lawsuit in court, we applied to Liberty Bank and demanded both the cancellation of the loan and the transfer of contracts. They did not meet our request and did not provide us with contracts. They told us that they are looking for it in the archive, which is unclear because we are discussing current loans. This suggests that they continue to exploit pensioners and deduct their pensions for loans for which no contract is being sought,’ Giorgi Rekhviashvili told Georgian News.
“Retirees refer to their lifelong debts as “overdrafts” due to their belief that they cannot repay them independently. “Overdraft” stands as the most costly banking product. The bank employees failed to elucidate the risks involved to the pensioners; they neglected to clarify that the funds they were repaying would solely cover the bank's service fees, with no reduction in the principal loan amount," states Ketevan Turazashvili, a member of the Citizens’ Party and Member of Parliament. Turazashvili highlights that his party receives numerous connections from pensioners daily.
According to Geostat data, as of 2023, the number of pension recipients (elderly pensioners) in Georgia totaled 838,100 individuals.
Out of these, 354,000 pensioners and social benefit recipients have opted for pension loans. As per the report submitted by Liberty Bank to the National Bank, the weighted average nominal interest rate for pension loans issued in the third quarter of the previous year stood at 29.4%. The cumulative portfolio of pension loans amounted to 401 million GEL.
