LISBON, March 31 (Reuters) – Mortgage lending in
Portugal rose 8.7% in February from a year ago to 1.35 billion
euros despite a sharp rise in interest rates on new loans due to
monetary policy tightening by the European Central Bank, Bank of
Portugal data showed on Friday.
The average interest rate on new mortgages soared to 3.52%
in February from just 0.87% a year ago.
The ECB last raised its refinancing rate by 50 basis points
to 3.50% two weeks ago.
In Portugal, around 90% of the stock of 1.4 million
mortgages have variable rates indexed to six-month and 12-month
Euribor rates.
The share of bad loans in Portuguese banks’ loan portfolios
fell to an all-time low of 3% in December, the central bank said
on Thursday.
In a separate report, the Bank of Portugal said that in 2022
there was “an improvement in the risk profile of borrowers of
new home loan operations, with a reduction in the percentage of
credit granted to high-risk borrowers”.
It said that in 2022 around 91% of new credit for housing
and consumption was granted to borrowers with a debt
service-to-income ratio less than or equal to 50%.
The percentage of residential real estate transactions
financed by domestic credit remained stable between 2018 and
2022, at around 46%, significantly lower than the 76% in
2009-2010 at the start of Portugal’s debt crisis that led to an
international bailout and painful austerity.
($1 = 0.9205 euros)
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; editing by Andrei Khalip and
Giles Elgood)
Source: marketscreener.com