Serves me right for assuming Germans had a similarly judgemental attitude to people who have ruined their finances. Thanks for the correction.

Finns often have a very puritan attitude to debt (you should fear it like the devil), and in the common discussion it's often attributed to the ethics of the Lutheran church. That's at least partially the reason we still don't have a real personal bankruptcy option. Somewhat surprising to me that a country that shares that value system could be that forgiving to people – I'm a bit envious even 😅

Around here Klarna and other similar companies have long been seen as exploiting the fact that debt is really difficult to get through proper sources, and there's a matching draconian bunch of collections agencies to support that business model. We've mainly been trying to tackle this by regulating the process of giving out loans, instead of giving people the necessary way out and thus giving the corporations an incentive to self-regulate.

If bad credit is actually no longer possible to collect on, it ceases to be good business. Hats off to Germany for having a proper route out of predatory loans.