Banking statistics for March 2026
Commentary by Miroslav Zámečník, Chief Advisor of the Czech Banking Association
Corporate lending is the healthiest in history and the Hormuz shutdown has not (yet) swayed Czech households or firms in their interest in lending. March was the first full month of the ongoing conflict in the Persian Gulf, joining the more than four-year war in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the increased geopolitical tensions, rising prices of oil, gas and other commodities, including fuel, do not seem to have had time to negatively affect interest in consumer, mortgage or corporate loans. Czech households, as well as sole traders and businesses, are repaying the loans they have taken out very well. Businesses and trades are even doing the best in the history of the Czech Republic.
Households
Consumer loans
The total volume of consumer credit (excluding overdrafts and credit card balances) reached CZK 384 billion in March, an increase of 2% month-on-month, a truly dynamic development that also applies to the year-on-year comparison, where the rise was 13.5%. In March, positive sentiment persisted among consumers in particular, and the value of the consumer confidence indicator climbed to 110.4, conditions in which the willingness to borrow for consumption is increasing. However, the CSO's April surveys had already brought with them a cooling, mainly due to concerns about inflation. The CSO confirmed continued economic growth in the first quarter, with a surprisingly weak 0.2% quarter-on-quarter but with annual GDP growth of +2.1%. This is in line with the adjusted forecasts of the macroeconomic departments for this year and, incidentally, still slightly above the average compound annual growth rate of the Czech economy over the last twenty years, which was 1.8% (in 2015 prices). The Czech population did not, therefore, fall into fear of further developments to the extent of reducing their consumption and increasing savings in March. Continued inflationary pressure could change this, especially if the CNB were to move to raise monetary policy rates in the period ahead. Suffice it to say that benchmark long-term market rates (10YRS IRS) remain at the elevated levels they reached during March.
The deterioration in the outlook has not yet managed to filter through to the quality of the loan book, quite the opposite in fact: bank consumer loans showing difficulty in repayment ("non-performing", excluding overdrafts and credit card balances) have fallen month-on-month from 4.01% and are in fact the best figure since December 2023 and disproportionately better than a decade ago (9.06%).
Housing
According to the original data of the CBA Hypomonitor, banks and building societies granted new mortgages in the amount of CZK 40.3 billion in March, which is a significant month-on-month and year-on-year increase of more than CZK 10 billion and CZK 13 billion, respectively. If we have written in recent months that mortgage rates "have nothing to push down", then unfortunately there is nothing to change in this statement. On a month-on-month basis, rates fell to second place after the decimal point from 4.46% to 4.43%, with a 25 basis point, or quarter of a percentage point, year-on-year reduction. The rise in average monthly repayments to C25,561 is mainly due to a rise in the average size of mortgages, which are almost a fifth higher than a year ago at C4.81m.
The events in the Gulf are reflected in the rise in crown swap rates, which serve as a benchmark for mortgages, to 4.3% for the three-year swap. Thus, comparing mortgage and swap rates, it can be seen that margins on mortgages have narrowed quite significantly due to competition from banks in the market (they were around 0.8-1.2% before 28 February 2026).
The quality of the mortgage portfolio continues to be excellent: only 0.53% of total mortgages were classified as "non-performing", the same as in February. This compares with 2.06% ten years ago.
Non-financial sector companies
If we look at the evolution of corporate loan balances, we see a month-on-month increase of 0.7%, after January's +1% and February's +1.57%, to CZK 1.552 trillion (CZK 104 billion more than in February 2025).
In particular, the year-on-year comparison shows a high increase of 14.3% in koruna loans, while euro loans were essentially flat with a 0.5% y-o-y increase.
This is also confirmed by a look at the development of new business - the net volume of new koruna loans, including increases, reached a high CZK 48.2 billion in March, and the equivalent of CZK 29 billion in euro business.
The ratio of koruna loans to euro loans reached 803.5 to 726.6 (in billions of koruna) in March, whereas a year ago there was a slight predominance of euro loans. It should be noted here, however, that many foreign-owned companies operating in the Czech Republic are financed "outside" as part of group cash-pooling.
The share of non-performing loans in the non-financial corporate sector as a whole fell to just 2.26%, a new historical low. Together with the still high level of corporate deposits (CZK 1.652 trillion), all the indications are that, as a whole, the "corporates" are very healthy.
Development of the main segments of the credit market (year-on-year, %)
Source: CNB, CBA Monitor
Deposits
In contrast to the very strong month-on-month increase in deposits of the population by CZK 47.6 billion in January and the February increase by CZK 23 billion, their volume fell by some CZK 800 million in March, but remained above the CZK 3.9 trillion mark. Year-on-year, however, deposits rose by two hundred and eight billion crowns. Despite the month-on-month decline of almost sixteen billion crowns, the Czechs still have 1.265 trillion crowns in the current accounts of the population, which corresponds to about 15% of the Czech gross domestic product!
Given that the population owes CZK 2.5 trillion to banks and building societies, households are significant net providers of resources to the banking system to the tune of around CZK 1.4 trillion. As for non-financial corporations, here we record CZK 1.652 trillion in deposit accounts in March compared to CZK 1.552 trillion in loans, which means that they still have a hundred billion more deposited in banks than borrowed.
Development of deposits in the main segments (year-on-year, %)
Source: CNB, CBA Monitor
Non-performing loans in main segments (%)
Source: CNB, CBA Monitor
Share of non-performing loans in EU/EEA countries (%, 12/2025)
Source: EBA