Euribor

Interest rates for some 400,000 housing loans concluded with a floating rate and whose installments had frozen at the levels of May 2023, when the European Central Bank's interest rate was at 3.5% and the 3-month Euribor at 3%, are now free to decline.

National Bank of Greece posted after-tax profits of 983 million euros in the first nine months of the year, the lender announced on Thursday, recording a 15% increase year-on-year.

This is the result of the resilience of its net revenues from interest and the strong takings from commissions, the bank argued.

Bank of Cyprus is lowering the reference interest rate on loans linked to the European Central Bank's (ECB) base rate, effective this Wednesday. The rate will drop from 4.25% to 3.65%, following the ECB's recent interest rate reductions.

The de-escalation of lending rates, but also of interest rates on deposits by commercial banks, is expected to be slow, as banks await the next moves by the European Central Bank to determine their pricing policy.

BELGRADE - Serbian First Deputy PM and Finance Minister Sinisa Mali told Tanjug that, in a first for the country, Serbia had issued ten-year sustainable/green (ESG) bonds on Wednesday, raising 1.5 bln dollars under extremely favourable terms, at an interest rate of 4.7 pct.

Cypriot banks are maintaining a low profile, but 2024 will likely bring higher profits than the record-breaking figures of 2023.

Half of the loans in Cyprus are vulnerable to shifts in the Euribor and the European Central Bank's (ECB) key rates, though no further increases are expected in 2024 and 2025, but rather possible decreases, according to the latest Financial Stability Report for 2022 by the Central Bank of Cyprus.

Banks are stopping any further rises in mortgage rates, freezing interest rates at a date reportedly set for March 31.

This means that any increases made after last Friday or due to be made from now on in the interest rates that form the basis of reference for housing loans will not be applied.

It didn't take long for the housing loan installments to "soar" up by 100 euros, while at the same time, the prices of apartments for sale constantly grow, affecting rents to increase by up to 50 percent.

The Turkey Wealth Fund on March 24 announced it has finalized a syndication loan transaction amounting to €1.25 billion ($1.48 billion) with the participation of 14 banks from countries from Asia, Europe, North America, and the Middle East.