Banking already granted six billion euros in home loans this year

Loans for house purchase keep increasing in Portugal. This year alone, banks have already granted almost six billion euros in home loans. Data from the Bank of Portugal indicate that in the first nine months of the year, financial institutions granted 5,953 million euros in house credit, 43% more than what was granted in the same period of last year.

This year’s level of credit granting is still the highest since the beginning of the financial crisis: one would have to go back to the same period of 2010 to see higher amounts, according to data disclosed this Tuesday by the entity headed by Carlos Costa. In the fist nine months of the year, Portuguese banks granted a total of 7,805 million euros in loans for house purchase.

Home credit between January and September

Loans for house purchase are, in fact, the main driver of the recovery of the levels of granting in Portugal. Families take advantage of the improvement of their financial perspectives, considering the recovery in the economy and in employment, to go back to deciding on purchasing a house by means of a banking loan.

The current levels of home credit granting are still aided by the historically low level of indexes used for the credit contracts — which remain negative –, but also by the set back in spreads charged by banks keen on releasing liquidity to the economy.

This year, banks granted 3,014 million euros in consumer credit and 1,476 million euros in credit to privates and other purposes. This means that the total amount of new loans to families rose to more than ten billion euros (10,443 million euros) between January and September, 25% more than the loans registered in the same period of 2016.