Banking statistics for March 2025
Commentary by Miroslav Zámečník, Chief Advisor of the Czech Banking Association
The year-on-year dynamics of deposits of the population is gradually slowing down, while an upward trend is evident in loans. Firms and the population continue to repay loans like clockwork.
Households
Consumer credit
The total volume of consumer credit (excluding overdrafts and credit cards) reached CZK 338 billion in March, an increase of one percentage point month-on-month, which is a very respectable rate of growth; on an annual average, the increase was 9.2%. The recovery in consumption is thus partly financed by consumer credit, where the year-on-year growth rates have been rising since last April, with persistently low percentages of those having difficulty repaying them. The share of non-performing loans made by banks in this category fell to 4.22% month-on-month, down five hundredths of a percentage point.
Mortgages
Last year was marked mainly by a significant recovery in interest in mortgage lending, and all indications are that interest in mortgages will continue this year. Year-on-year lending in this category rose by 6%, with CZK 27 billion of new mortgage loans (excluding refinancing) granted in March, representing a month-on-month increase of CZK 6 billion, with interest rates falling from 4.78% in January to 4.72% in February and 4.68% in March. This is a gradual, modest decline; a year ago, rates were 5.30%.
A competitive battle between banks can be expected for both new business and refinancing mortgages, which are coming to the end of their fixations from a period of exceptionally low rates, and clients can save money by carefully comparing offers.
Fortunately, what has not changed at all is the very good payment morale of borrowers, which is particularly true for mortgage repayments; over the last year, the share of non-performing mortgages has remained stable at around 0.60%, making it one of the lowest in the EU.
Non-financial corporations
If we look at the evolution of corporate loan balances, we see a one per cent month-on-month decline in the volume of loans to public corporations, the same trend was evident in March for foreign-controlled firms, while loan balances to domestic private corporations rose by one per cent. The total volume of new loans to non-financial corporations reached CZK 54 billion in March.
The volume of new koruna business (excluding overdrafts) reached CZK 26 billion month-on-month, with koruna rates falling from 5.5% to 5.4% p.a. After a dramatic fall in new euro business from CZK 51 billion in December to CZK 19.7 billion in January 2025, the volume picked up to CZK 23 billion in February and CZK 28 billion in March, with rates unchanged month-on-month at 4.2% (but at 4.9% in January).
At the same time, the share of non-performing corporate loans, i.e. those that companies have trouble paying for more than 90 days, fell slightly, by two hundredths of a percentage point, to 2.56%, a very good figure in international comparison. Together with the high level of deposits, this suggests that at an aggregate level, 'corporates' are financially sound.
Development of the main segments of the credit market (year-on-year, %)
Source: CNB, CBA Monitor
The year-on-year growth rate of the population's deposits has bottomed out in the first half of 2022 in recent years, rising almost every month since then, and since about May last year we have seen a very gradual decline to 5.7% in March 2025, when in monetary terms deposits fell by almost eleven and a half billion crowns compared to the end of February, but are still 202.7 billion crowns higher than a year ago and just below the level of 3.7 trillion crowns; the second highest figure in history.
The year-on-year rate of deposits of non-financial corporations shows much higher volatility, characterised by ups and downs in the curve, often very sharp. This is illustrated by the example of March this year, when deposits of foreign-controlled enterprises rose by CZK 8.6 billion since the end of February, while they fell by CZK 12 billion a month earlier, and large movements are also seen in enterprises with domestic or public owners. Overall, corporate deposits rose by CZK 5.7 billion month-on-month to a total of CZK 1.576 trillion at the end of March. Corporate deposits have now exceeded corporate borrowing for almost five years, a trend that has been ongoing since the covid summer of 2020, before which it was quite unusual. With the current level of uncertainty in business and the global economy, however, "cash-hoarding" is almost the "new normal", unfortunately. Asking companies to invest in this situation, however, is not a very realistic expectation.
Development of deposits in the main segments (year-on-year, %)
Source: CNB, CBA Monitor
Non-performing loans in main segments (%)
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Share of non-performing loans in EU/EEA countries (%)
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