New housing loans contracts reach record value in July

Nthe total, the new loans to private individuals reached eur 3,320 million in july, plus eur 195 million more than the previous month.

On the other hand, the renegotiations declined by EUR 124 million between June and July to EUR 519 million, and this decline focused on the renegotiations of housing loans, which fell by EUR 109 million.

Overall, the new lending operations to private individuals – which include new contracts and renegotiated contracts – amounted to €3.839 million in July, plus €70 million more than in June, mainly due to new housing loan operations.

“ This increase was mainly due to new lending operations for housing, which increased EUR 57 million to EUR 2.836 million,” the central bank said.

On the other hand, the amounts of new consumption and other purpose operations increased by EUR 9 and EUR 5 million, respectively, to EUR 663 and 340 million.

In July, the average interest rate on new residential credit operations increased by 0.02 percentage points to 2.96%.

According to the BdP, this increase resulted from new contracts and renegotiated contracts, whose average interest rates rose by 0.02 percentage points to 2.95% and 2.97%, respectively.

In the euro area, the average interest rate on new housing loans rose by 0.04 percentage points to 3.52%, while Portugal maintained the fifth average low rate among euro area countries.

In consumer loans, the average interest rate on new transactions was 8.99%, plus 0.20 percentage points than in June, while in loans for other purposes it increased by 0.07 percentage points to 3.76%.

As for the amount of new loans granted to companies, it totaled EUR 3,076 million in July, plus 11 million more than the previous month.

According to the BdP, this increase resulted from the amount of renegotiations, which increased EUR 120 million to EUR 331 million.

The central bank details that new loan operations up to EUR 1 million amounted to EUR 1,479 million, plus EUR 27 million than in the previous month, while operations over EUR 1 million fell by EUR 17 million to EUR 1,597 million.

The average interest rate on new business lending operations decreased by 0.06 percentage points from 4.09% in June to 4.03% in July.

In the new contracts, which accounted for 89% of the amount of new transactions, the average interest rate fell by 0.02 percentage points to 4.06%.

This change resulted from a reduction in interest rates on loans above EUR 1 million (-0.19 percentage points to 3.86%), partly offset by an increase in loans up to EUR 1 million (+0.06 percentage points to 4.21%).