CBSL: vehicle & gold loans now 85% of finance company lending — overexposed?

The Central Bank's latest report shows 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 end-2024. At finance companies specifically, these two categories are now 85.2% of the entire loan book, with vehicle-backed loans alone at nearly 64%. Early-warning (Stage 2) loans jumped 75.5% year-on-year for vehicle credit and 279.2% for gold credit. CBSL has already tightened loan-to-value limits — new vehicles capped at 40%, used vehicles at 60%, commercial at 60% — to slow the build-up. One side says this is normal catch-up demand after years of import restrictions, vehicles hold resale value reasonably well here, and the new LTV limits are already fixing the problem before it becomes one. The other side says a finance company betting most of its book on cars and gold is exactly how past credit crunches started — one drop in resale prices or gold value and repossessions spiral, squeezing everyone, not just the person who took the loan. Have you taken a vehicle-backed loan recently, or noticed a finance company getting more aggressive about repossession in your area? Share what you're actually seeing. මෙහෙම වාහන ණය වැඩි වීම අනාගතේට අනතුරුදායකද?