Some 20,000 Slovenians saw their loans soar after the Swiss central bank decided in 2015 that it would no longer hold the franc at a fixed exchange rate with the euro.

"Since January 2015, they have battled with banks, the banks' association, the Finance Ministry, MPs and a part of the general public that has labelled them speculators."

But the stories they tell make it hard to call them speculators who voluntarily risked the very roofs over their heads, the paper says.

Many of them took out long-term loans and exposed themselves to immense currency risks over decades, and some owe more after years of repaying their loans than they did when they first took out the loans.

The Higher Curt ruled that the borrowers did not understand in full the risk they were taking despite the banks' claiming that they informed their clients about currency risks.

While the central bank had been cautioning banks against giving Swiss franc loans, the banks stuck their heads in the sand and hoped for continuous passivity of their clients.

But this will end with the first final ruling, which is even better for the borrowers than a bill addressing the issue which is making its way through parliament, Večer says under the headline First...