Almost 1 in 4 Loans in SL Are Now Backed by a Vehicle or Gold — Worried?

The Central Bank's latest Financial Stability Review says vehicle and gold-backed loans together made up 24.9% of all bank and finance company credit by June 2026, up from 19.6% at the end of 2024. Vehicle-backed lending alone grew 46.3% in a year and drove 65% of the finance sector's credit growth, but the riskier 'Stage 2' vehicle loans - the ones showing early signs of trouble - jumped 75.5% over the same period. That's why CBSL kept cutting the loan-to-value limit, down to 40% for most new vehicles by May 2026. One side says this is just normal catch-up after years of import bans - people needed vehicles to work, leases got them moving, and finance companies are simply doing their job. The other side says a quarter of the system's credit sitting on depreciating vehicles and gold prices is exactly the kind of concentration that blew up before, and the Stage 2 numbers show borrowers already struggling to keep up. If you've got a lease running right now, is your instalment still comfortable, or has fuel, insurance and the surcharge on your next upgrade made it tighter than you expected? ලීසිං පොලිය දරන්න බැරිවෙලාද?