Housing loan drawdowns brisk in October

Drawdowns of new housing loans in October 2020 totalled EUR 2 bn, an increase of 5.5% on October a year earlier. On a monthly level, housing loan drawdowns have last been this high in May 2011. Despite the decline in the spring, the current year has been brisk for drawdowns of housing loans. In January–October 2020, new drawdowns were 2% higher than in the same period a year earlier. The annualised agreed rate on new housing loans fell slightly from September, to 0.71% in October 2020.

Annual growth in the housing loan stock has picked up, to over 3% in October 2020. In addition to the ample borrowing in early 2020 and recent months, growth has been driven by the popularity of interest-only periods in the spring. The stock of euro-denominated housing loans in October totalled EUR 103.0 bn.

Growth in the housing loan stock has partly been underpinned by longer repayment periods. In October 2020, the average repayment period of new housing loans lengthened slightly and was 21 years and 5 months. The most typical repayment period for new housing loans in Finland is 24–26 years. Such loans accounted in October for slightly over half of all new housing loans, while loans with longer repayment periods (over 29 years) accounted for 10.4%.

Loans

At the end of October, household credit comprised EUR 16.7 bn in consumer credit and EUR 18.4 bn in other loans. Drawdowns of new loans to non-financial corporations (excl. overdrafts and credit card credit) totalled EUR 1.9 bn. The average interest rate on new corporate loan drawdowns declined from September, to 2.16%. At the end of October, the stock of euro-denominated loans to non-financial corporations totalled EUR 97.3 bn, of which loans to housing corporations accounted for EUR 37.0 bn.

Deposits

The stock of Finnish households’ deposits at the end of October 2020 totalled EUR 103.4 bn and the average interest rate on the deposits was 0.07%. Overnight deposits accounted for EUR 91.0 bn and deposits with an agreed maturity for EUR 3.9 bn of the deposit stock. In October, households concluded EUR 0.1 bn of new agreements on deposits with agreed maturity, at an average interest rate of 0.23%.

For further information, please contact:

Ville Tolkki, tel. +358 9 183 2420, email: ville.tolkki(at)bof.fi
Anu Karhu, tel. +358 9 183 2228, email: anu.karhu(at)bof.fi

The next news release will be published at 1 pm on 7 January 2021.

Related statistical data and graphs are also available on the Bank of Finland website: https://www.suomenpankki.fi/en/Statistics/mfi-balance-sheet/.