ECB: Eurozone bank increases interest rates for companies

Oin the third quarter, euro area banks raised interest rates on loans to companies, especially large companies, according to a survey by the European Central Bank (ECB) published today.

Companies in the euro area have generally reported a further increase in interest rates on bank loans, the ECB said.

Almost 50%, specifically 46%, of the companies consulted by the ECB reported an increase in interest rates on bank loans in the third quarter compared to 42% in the previous quarter.

Large companies reported increases more frequently (55% compared to 41% earlier).

But 38% of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) said that banks increased interest on loans, compared to 43% previously.

At the same time, 27% of companies said that other financing costs, such as charges, fees and commissions, and guarantee requirements increased.

The ECB conducted the 40th survey on access to finance for companies in the euro area between 26 August and 2 October to over 12,800 companies, of which 93% had fewer than 250 employees.

The companies also said that the availability of bank loans had decreased to a greater extent than their financing needs during the third quarter of 2026.

Both SMEs and large companies pointed to a lower availability of bank loans.

At the same time, 2% of the companies said that their needs for bank loans decreased, while in the previous quarter 2% indicated an increase.

This fall in the need for bank credits occurred in large companies.

A greater number of companies expect that the availability of external funding will decrease in the next three months.

The Commission considers that the general economic outlook is the main factor limiting the availability of external funding and large companies are more pessimistic than SMEs.

In this survey, 9% of the companies indicated that their sales and profit prospects had a negative impact on the availability of external funding (compared to 10% of the previous survey).

However, the impact of its capital situation and credit solvency was positive.

The ECB asked about half of the companies in this survey about the changes between July and September 2026 and the other half consulted on the changes that occurred between April and September 2026.

Most of the participating companies responded to this survey for the first time and therefore the ECB says that the change in sample composition makes it difficult to interpret the answers to numerical questions.

Companies that participated both in this research and in the previous one predict a moderate increase in sales prices.

But in the complete sample, these expectations of increases in sales prices increased greatly.