September 5 (SeeNews) - Credit growth in Serbia accelerated to 13.1% year-on-year in the second quarter from 6.3% a year earlier, Serbia's central bank said.
Lending to corporates increased by 15.8% on the year in April-June, while retail lending decreased to 9.8%, the central bank, NBS, said in a statement on Friday.
Corporate loans grew in the second quarter by 48.3 billion dinars ($408.2 million/411.6 million euro), up 141% year-on-year, while retail loans rose by 38.4 billion dinars, down 14.3% from a year earlier.
Housing loans continued their double-digit year-on-year growth in 2022, which in June amounted to 14.3%.
According to NBS, interest rates on loans increased during the second quarter and averaged 3.8% for corporate loans and 9.1% for retail loans (against 3.2% and 8.7%, respectively, in the like period of 2021).
At the same time, average interest rates on euro-denominated loans increased by 0.1 pp to 2.6% for corporate in the second quarter and by 0.5 pp to 3.6% for retail loans, compared to June 2021.
The ratio of non-performing loans (NPL) to total loans was 3.26% at the end of June, down 0.34 pp year-on-year. The NPL ratio for corporate loans decreased by 0.7 pp to 2.2%, while for retail loans it increased by 0.2 pp to 4.2%, compared to June 2021.
(1 euro = 117.346 dinars)