Loans to Households YoY

Loans to Households YoY is the annual growth rate of adjusted loans to euro-area households, including non-profit institutions serving households. The European Central Bank (ECB) publishes it in Monetary developments in the euro area, with national central banks as compilers. It covers loans by monetary financial institutions (MFIs) to euro-area households, and despite the European Union label it measures the euro area only. It is not new lending, nor borrowing costs from bank interest rate statistics, Bank Lending Survey results, or loans to firms and governments.

The ECB publishes the release once a month, roughly 4 weeks after the reference month, at 10:00 CET. Each release covers 1 reference month and reports end-month stocks, monthly transactions and annual growth rates, though data are often provisional and may be revised. MFIs report to their national central bank, which compiles the euro-area total, while dates shift around holidays with a lag near one month.

Each issue carries M3, M1 and counterparts, deposits and adjusted loans with charts, Tables 1 to 4 and BSI data. Annex tables stay frozen snapshots while links update later. Seasonal factors are reviewed yearly or as needed.

The headline reflects 3 household loan purposes, and the largest purpose usually drives the result.

• Lending for house purchase: credit for own-use or rental housing, including building, refurbishment and land purchase, also called housing loans.
• Credit for consumption: loans for personal goods and services, including vehicles, furniture, durables, overdrafts and credit-card debt.
• Other lending: residual loans for business use by sole proprietors, investment, debt consolidation and education.

In February 2024 (press release March 28, 2024), adjusted loans to households grew 0.3% YoY, unchanged from January 2024. The rate was 0.4% in December 2023 and then fell to 0.2% in March 2024.

Consumption credit grew 2.8% on EUR 737bn, house-purchase lending stood at -0.1% on EUR 5220bn, and other lending fell 3.1% on EUR 682bn. Adjusted loans stood at EUR 6872bn with EUR 4bn of flows and 0.3% growth. Raw loans stood at EUR 6638bn with EUR 5bn of flows and -0.1%, so added-back securitised loans explain the gap. Broad money M3 grew only 0.4% alongside, so the large housing stock at -0.1% pinned the headline near zero.

1. Monthly transactions: subtract reclassifications, exchange-rate changes and revaluations from the change in end-month stocks to isolate genuine lending flows. For example, stocks rising from EUR 6800.0bn to EUR 6805.0bn with EUR 1.0bn of reclassifications give EUR 4.0bn of transactions.
2. Adjusted loans: add back derecognised loans sold or securitised but still serviced, and remove notional cash-pooling positions from stocks and transactions alike.
3. Outstanding amounts index: multiply the previous index by one plus transactions over the previous stock; the base is December 2010 = 100.
4. Annual growth rate: divide the month index by its value 12 months earlier, subtract one and multiply by 100. An index of 100.0588 against 99.76 a year earlier gives 0.3%, with 0.06% month on month.
5. Seasonal adjustment: apply multiplicative decomposition with X-12-ARIMA to the index first to remove seasonal and end-month calendar effects, then derive factors for levels and transactions. Factors are reviewed yearly or as needed.
6. Changing composition: build rates from chain-linked indices at euro-area enlargements; convert pre-1999 stocks at the irrevocable rates of December 31, 1998.