Mortgage credit fell 1.8% in 2020 according to the AHE By EFE

Madrid, Apr 22 (.) .- Mortgage credit amounted to a total of 632,105 million euros at the end of 2020, 1.8% less than a year earlier, according to data provided this Thursday by the Spanish Mortgage Association (AHE) .

The AHE bulletin highlights that, within this figure, the book balance of banks and savings banks registered a decline of 2.0%, while that of credit cooperatives presented a lower decrease, of 0.1%.

For the Association, this confirms a moderation in the rate of progressive debt reduction that has taken place in recent months, and which has been reflected in the credit ratio, a percentage that stood at 56.4% at the end of December 2020 compared to to 51.7% at the end of 2019.

However, from the AHE they focus on the “extraordinary drop” experienced in GDP in this last year due to the effect of the coronavirus pandemic, which “reasonably” will be corrected in the coming years.

Regarding the indebtedness in the resident private sector, it chained three consecutive quarters to the rise due to the exceptional measures applied at national level to support the liquidity of the companies, indicates the AHE.

This credit segment earned in net terms almost 31,000 million euros throughout 2020, 2.6% more, until reaching a balance of 1,224 billion euros at the end of the year.

The evolution of credit during 2020 was boosted “precisely by the granting of credit by deposit institutions in collaboration with the Official Credit Institute (ICO)”, and between both channels an increase in financing in books of 3.6%.

However, financial credit establishments (EFCs) showed a decline in books of 18.9% over the last year, a reduction that is explained by a context in which “precisely the credit of EFCs was the one that it was more dynamic in relative terms until shortly before the pandemic broke out, “when there was a turning point in the uptrend.

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