Results of the January 2012 bank lending survey for the euro area

The European Central Bank (ECB) is publishing today its report on the results of the January 2012 bank lending survey for the euro area. The bank lending survey, which is conducted four times a year, usually at the beginning of each quarter, was developed by the Eurosystem in order to enhance the understanding of bank lending behaviour in the euro area.

The results reported in the January 2012 survey relate to changes in the last quarter of 2011 and to expectations of changes in the first quarter of 2012. Three ad hoc questions were added to the questionnaire for the January 2012 survey round. The ad hoc question dealing with the impact of the financial turmoil on the access to wholesale funding was amended to also include retail funding. In addition, a question on the impact of the sovereign debt crisis and a question on the likely impact of ongoing regulatory changes on credit standards were included in this round of the survey.

The January 2012 bank lending survey was conducted between 19 December 2011 and 9 January 2012. With 124 banks participating in the survey, the response rate was 100%.

The report is available on the ECB’s website (http://www.ecb.europa.eu) in the “Statistics” section under “Monetary and financial statistics”/“Surveys”/“Bank lending survey”.