Pure new credit provided by the Cypriot banks in November amounted to almost €258 million with total new lending provided for the period of January – November approaching €3 billion marking a slight annual increase despite repeated interest rate hikes.

According to data released by the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC), pure new loans, that is excluding renegotiations, in November amounted to €257.8 million, marking a marginal decrease of 0.2% year on year.

Corporate new loans over €1 million amounted to €99.7 million, marking an annual increase of 12.4%.

Loans for house purchase rose by an annual 5.9% in November 2023 reaching €87.8 million, compared to €82.9 million in November of the previous year.

According to the CBC, new corporate lending declined by 2.97% year on year in November amounting to €42.4 million compared with €43.9 million the year before.

Consumer credit rose by 72% in November reaching €21.3 million compared with €12.4 million in November last year, whereas other pure new credit rose by 22% year on year reaching €6.6 million from €5.4 million in November 2022.

Approaching €3 billion

According to the CBC data, total new lending for the period of January to November, amounted to €2.98 billion, marking an annual increase of 4.94% mainly due to large corporate lending.

Corporate new loans over €1 million amounted to 43% of total new credit, reaching €1.28 billion in the period compared with €1.07 billion in the respective period of the previous year.

New loans for house purchase represented 31% of total new credit in Cyprus and amounted to €0.93 billion compared with €1.08 billion in the period of January – November 2022.

Corporate loans up to €1 million marked a slight decrease, declining to €468 million from €470 million last year while they represented 15.7% of total new lending.

Consumer credit for the period of January – November 2023 rose to €215 million from €142 million in the respective period of last year and amounted to 7.2% of total loans.

Furthermore, total other new credit for January – November 2023 rose to €97 million compared to €72 million in the respective period of last year and represented 3.2% of total loans, the CBC added.