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Residential Bank Lending Resumes Growth

15 May 2019 – Richard D. K. Turner

The Bank of Portugal (BdP) stated that bank lending for housing purchases increased to 870 million euros in March, reversing the downward trend of the previous two months, according to an article in the Jornal Expresso. The data represents an increase of €146 million compared to February but is still below the figure for March 2018 (876 million euros).

Banks granted 2.351 billion euros in new residential mortgages in the first three months of the year,  an increase of 7.5% y-o-y and a high for the decade. Meanwhile, the average interest rate decreased by one basis point in March to 1.36%.

Original Story: Jornal Expresso