Banking Statistics for September 2026

September marks the end of the first three quarters of this year, which is a good opportunity to take stock. During the month itself, the major trends continued: high demand for loans, and deposits that remained flat or, in some categories, declined slightly. The excellent news is that the share of non-performing client loans has been declining throughout this year, hitting a historic low in September—not just overall, but across nearly all categories. In the EBA Risk Dashboard, the Czech banking system remains in the top third of the pan-European rankings in terms of loan portfolio quality.

Households

Consumer Loans

The total volume of consumer loans (excluding overdrafts and credit card balances), having surpassed the 400-billion-crown mark in early summer, continues to grow. In September, it reached its highest nominal volume to date of 413.7 billion crowns, representing a month-over-month increase of 0.89% and a year-over-year increase of 15%. The non-performing loan ratio is nearing an all-time low, having reached 3.66% and falling by three-tenths of a percentage point month-over-month. Czechs therefore have reason to be confident in their proven ability to repay their obligations, even though interest rates on unsecured consumer loans are just below 8% per year. This is no different from the current interest rate level for consumer bank loans in Germany, and is two to three percentage points lower than in Poland.

Housing

The outstanding balance of mortgage loans granted to households reached 1.973 trillion crowns in September and is not far from reaching the two-trillion mark, having increased by more than 158 billion crowns year-over-year. According to preliminary data from the Czech Banking Association’s Hypomonitor, banks and building societies actually granted new mortgages totaling 26.8 billion crowns in August—again, a month-over-month decline— but when seasonality is taken into account, they rose slightly to approximately 29.6 billion CZK compared to 28.7 billion in the previous three months. In the first nine months of this year, total new “production” amounted to 301 billion crowns, which is 66 billion more than a year ago.

The average interest rate on new mortgages rose by one-tenth of a percentage point month-over-month in September to 5.1%, and is 0.58 percentage points higher year-over-year than in September 2025. This is primarily due to the rise in benchmark market interest rates (i.e., three- and five-year interest rate swaps). The reversal and subsequent rise in mortgage rates began to be reflected significantly in the spring. In the context of competition, banks typically do not pass on the full extent of rising market rates to customers, absorbing part of the impact at the expense of their margins; this is not charity: they are trying to stem the decline in demand for mortgages, as this is the Czech banking system’s most important product in terms of volume—by comparison, corporate loans, which rank second, had a balance that was 300 billion crowns lower as of the end of September.

Another significant factor enabling banks to accept lower interest margins is the low cost of risk in the Czech Republic, which is linked to excellent repayment behavior, particularly in this category. At 0.50% in September, the Czech non-performing loan (NPL) ratio is half that of the pre-COVID “normal” year of 2019. At the same time, it is less than one-third of the current level of mortgage NPLs in Poland, and roughly half that of Germany.

The average mortgage amount rose slightly from 4.59 to 4.67 million crowns in September, which is a noticeable decline from 4.88 million crowns in April, when —let’s recall—“investment” mortgages were being taken out before the CNB tightened its rules. This decline in volume amid rising interest rates means that the stylized “average” monthly payment rose to 26,540 crowns from 25,847 crowns in August.

Mortgages taken out with a five-year fixed rate in the “ultra-cheap” year of 2021, with an average rate of 2.33%, will therefore become significantly more expensive in terms of monthly payments—by about 3,900 CZK; however, average wages have risen by a third in the meantime.

Would Czechs be better off if they started focusing more on variable-rate mortgages? These are derived from the PRIBOR interbank market on a monthly, quarterly, or semi-annual basis, and some banks in the Czech Republic offer them.

The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) system, for example, clearly dominates in Finland and the Baltic states, and is also common on the opposite, “southern wing” in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. In the current situation, this would not be advantageous for clients at all, given the CNB’s high base rates, on which PRIBOR rates depend; moreover, in the Czech Republic, households clearly prefer certainty—even at the cost of a premium—since a fixed-rate mortgage allows you to know your payments several years in advance. The situation is similar, for example, in Germany or France, and 30-year fixed-rate terms—which are extreme by our standards—are the norm in the U.S., where mortgages are purchased from banks by the (semi-)governmental agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You pay for long-term certainty regarding payments, and not exactly a small amount—mortgages with a 30-year fixed rate are currently around 7.3% per year. You wouldn’t want that.

Non-Financial Sector Companies

Looking at the trend in corporate loan balances, we see a month-over-month increase of 1.6%, reaching 1.676 trillion crowns in September.

On an annualized basis, this represents strong growth that exceeds the year-over-year increase of 14%, with the pace this time accelerated by demand for loans in euros, which jumped 3.3% month-over-month to the CZK equivalent of 787.3 billion. In particular, subsidiaries of multinational corporations finance themselves “abroad,” often in the form of intra-group loans, which do not appear in these statistics—which focus on banks operating domestically (their trends are captured in the balance of payments data published by the CNB).

The share of non-performing loans in the non-financial corporate sector continued its streak of regularly breaking historical lows each month, but for the first time fell below the 2.00% threshold—albeit by four hundredths of a percent. Once again, the quality of the portfolio stands out in comparison with neighboring countries: Let us reiterate that this is roughly one-third the level seen in Poland, where the adage “risk is reward” appears to hold truer than here—a higher risk appetite translates into stronger economic growth. This cannot be said of the slowly growing economies of Germany and Austria, where the share of corporate non-performing loans is twice as high in Germany and roughly 3% in Austria.

Furthermore, Czech companies continue to hold a high level of corporate deposits (CZK 1.655 trillion in July), although the excess of deposits over loans—in itself a complete historical anomaly of the past six years—is narrowing.

Trends in the Main Segments of the Credit Market (Year-Over-Year, in %)

Source: CNB, CBA Monitor

Deposits

As of the end of September, residents of the Czech Republic held 3. 945 trillion crowns in their deposit accounts, representing a year-over-year increase of 4.7%; on a month-over-month basis, this is a negligible increase of two-tenths of a percent, which, however, given the enormous total volume, amounts to nearly eight billion crowns.

Czechs and residents held 1.261 trillion crowns in zero-interest checking accounts, with year-over-year and month-over-month stagnation, while the total volume of savings deposits on demand—which do offer slightly better returns—rose by 8.7% year-over-year and by 0.44% month-over-month.

By comparison: the aggregate balance sheet of investment funds had grown to just under two and a half trillion crowns by the end of August, up 11.1% year-over-year, while their fund capital—that is, what belongs to unit holders or shareholders—rose by 13.9%. Conservatism is thus gradually giving way as households adopt the trend typical of developed countries, which favors higher-yielding—albeit uninsured and riskier—assets. Since the pandemic, Czech households have been setting aside nearly the highest share of disposable income in Europe (19.9%); only Germans are ahead of us.

A major anomaly, confirming the caution of Czech businesses regarding money, is the aforementioned net surplus of deposits over business loans, even though the volume of deposits fell month-over-month by more than twenty billion crowns to 1.655 trillion crowns from 1.676 trillion in August, businesses still have twenty-one billion crowns more deposited in banks than they owe. In this respect, too, we resemble the behavior of German companies, where small and medium-sized enterprises (Mittelstand) in particular have always been conservative and are very reluctant to take on debt.

Deposit Trends in Major Segments (Year-Over-Year, in %)

Source: CNB, CBA Monitor

Non-performing loans in major segments (in %)

Source: CNB, CBA Monitor

Share of Non-Performing Loans in Individual EU/EEA Countries (%, June 2026)

Source: https://www.eba.europa.eu/risk-and-data-analysis/risk-analysis/risk-monitoring/risk-dashboard