Euro area bank interest rate statistics: December 2020

4 February 2021

• Composite cost-of-borrowing indicator for new loans to corporations unchanged at 1.51%, with indicator for new loans to households for house purchase broadly unchanged at 1.32%
• Composite interest rate for new deposits with agreed maturity from corporations broadly unchanged at -0.17%, with interest rate for overnight deposits from corporations unchanged at -0.01%
• Composite interest rate for new deposits with agreed maturity from households and for overnight deposits from households broadly unchanged at 0.22% and 0.01%, respectively

Bank interest rates for corporations

Data for cost of borrowing and deposit interest rates for corporations (Chart 1)

The composite cost-of-borrowing indicator, which combines interest rates on all loans to corporations, showed no change in December 2020. The interest rate on new loans of over €1 million with a floating rate and an initial rate fixation period of up to three months increased by 13 basis points to 1.35%. This increase was due to developments in one euro area country and was mainly driven by the interest rate effect. The rate for new loans of the same size with an initial rate fixation period of over three months and up to one year decreased by 6 basis points to 1.23%, mainly driven by the weight effect. The rate for new loans of over €1 million with an initial rate fixation period of over ten years remained broadly unchanged at 1.17%. In the case of new loans of up to €250,000 with a floating rate and an initial rate fixation period of up to three months, the average rate charged increased by 5 basis points to 2.05%, mainly driven by the weight effect.
As regards new deposit agreements, the interest rate on deposits from corporations with an agreed maturity of up to one year stayed almost constant at -0.20% in December 2020. The interest rate on overnight deposits from corporations stayed constant at -0.01%.

The interest rate on new loans to sole proprietors and unincorporated partnerships with a floating rate and an initial rate fixation period of up to one year decreased by 15 basis points to 2.05%. This decrease was due to developments in two euro area countries and was driven by the interest rate effect.

Data for bank interest rates for corporations (Table 1)

Bank interest rates for households

Data for cost of borrowing and deposit interest rate for households (Chart 2)

The composite cost-of-borrowing indicator, which combines interest rates on all loans to households for house purchase, remained broadly unchanged in December 2020. The interest rate on loans for house purchase with a floating rate and an initial rate fixation period of up to one year and the one for housing loans with an initial rate fixation period of over one and up to five years remained broadly unchanged at 1.35% and 1.52%, respectively. The interest rate on loans for house purchase with an initial rate fixation period of over five and up to ten years and the one on housing loans with an initial rate fixation period of over ten years stayed almost constant at 1.27% and 1.33%, respectively. In the same period, the interest rate on new loans to households for consumption fell by 15 basis points to 5.07%. This decrease was due to developments in three euro area countries and was driven by both the interest rate and the weight effect.
As regards new deposits from households, the interest rate on deposits with an agreed maturity of up to one year and the one on overnight deposits from households remained broadly unchanged at 0.16% and 0.01%, respectively. The interest rate on deposits redeemable at three months' notice showed no change at 0.35%.

Data for bank interest rates for households (Table 2)

Further information

Tables containing further breakdowns of bank interest rate statistics, including the composite cost-of-borrowing indicators for all euro area countries, are available from the ECB's Statistical Data Warehouse. A subset is visually presented at www.euro-area-statistics.org. The full set of bank interest rate statistics for both the euro area and individual countries can be downloaded from SDW. More information, including the release calendar, is available under "Bank interest rates" in the statistics section of the ECB's website.

For media queries, please contact Alexandrine Bouilhet, tel.: +49 69 1344 8949.

Notes:

• In this press release "corporations" refers to non-financial corporations (sector S.11 in the European System of Accounts 2010, or ESA 2010), "households" refers to households and non-profit institutions serving households (ESA 2010 sectors S.14 and S.15) and "banks" refers to monetary financial institutions except central banks and money market funds (ESA 2010 sectors S.122).
• The composite cost-of-borrowing indicators are described in the article entitled "Assessing the retail bank interest rate pass-through in the euro area at times of financial fragmentation" in the August 2013 issue of the ECB's Monthly Bulletin (see Box 1). For these indicators, a weighting scheme based on the 24-month moving averages of new business volumes has been applied, in order to filter out excessive monthly volatility. For this reason the developments in the composite cost of borrowing indicators in both tables cannot be explained by the month-on-month changes in the displayed subcomponents. Furthermore, the table on bank interest rates for corporations presents a subset of the series used in the calculation of the cost of borrowing indicator.
• Interest rates on new business are weighted by the size of the individual agreements. This is done both by the reporting agents and when the national and euro area averages are computed. Thus changes in average euro area interest rates for new business reflect, in addition to changes in interest rates, changes in the weights of individual countries' new business for the instrument categories concerned. The "interest rate effect" and the "weight effect" presented in this press release are derived from the Bennet index, which allows month-on-month developments in euro area aggregate rates resulting from changes in individual country rates (the "interest rate effect") to be disentangled from those caused by changes in the weights of individual countries' contributions (the "weight effect"). Owing to rounding, the combined "interest rate effect" and the "weight effect" may not add up to the month-on-month developments in euro area aggregate rates.
• In addition to monthly euro area bank interest rate statistics for December 2020, this press release incorporates revisions to data for previous periods. Hyperlinks in the main body of the press release lead to data that may change with subsequent releases as a result of revisions. Unless otherwise indicated, these euro area statistics cover the EU Member States that had adopted the euro at the time to which the data relate.
• As of reference period December 2014, the sector classification applied to bank interest rates statistics is based on the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010). In accordance with the ESA 2010 classification and as opposed to ESA 95, the non-financial corporations sector (S.11) now excludes holding companies not engaged in management and similar captive financial institutions.