Domestic banks have made progress in closing the financing gap, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, while household demand remains at a standstill – especially for housing loans.
The data released by the Bank of Greece for the first 10 months of 2024 reveal a reduction in the financing gap, which “shows” a strengthening of loan balances by 3.24 billion euros in total.
The eyes are turned to loans to small and medium-sized enterprises, which increased by 25% year-on-year in the first 10 months, to 451 million euros. Overall, loans to enterprises increased by 8.5% in the same period (compared to 6.5% last year), to 590 million euros, compared to 543 million euros a year earlier. Also, at the level of loans without a predetermined duration (credit lines and other facilities), a significant increase of 9.6% was recorded between January and October 2024.
Overall, the data for the period January-October 2024 showed the following: an increase of 4.89 billion in business loans and 31 million in consumer loans and a drop of 264 million in professional loans and 75 million euros in other retail loans.
As the central bank explained, the acceleration of credit expansion to businesses is linked to the strengthening of demand for bank loans, especially by large businesses.
More specifically, Piraeus Bank expects to close the year with credit expansion of approximately 3 billion euros with a total of current loans of 33 billion euros, National Bank “sees” an expansion of 2.0-2.5 billion euros in 2024 and Alpha Bank 2 billion euros.
Eurobank, due to the merger with the Hellenic Bank in Cyprus, revised this year’s credit expansion target to 3.5 billion euros. The sector continues to draw its main impetus from business credit.
