As a result of transactions, corporate loans outstanding increased by around HUF 108 billion in 2014 Q4, and consequently, 2014 was the first year since the outset of the crisis when the balance of disbursements and repayments was positive, by around 2.4 per cent of loans outstanding. The year-on-year growth was mainly attributable to disbursements under the Funding for Growth Scheme. In the period under review, new loans were extended in the amount of HUF 637 billion, and the majority of these were forint loans. Almost half of new forint loan contracts were concluded under the Funding for Growth Scheme. As a result, utilisation of the Scheme was close to HUF 600 billion by the end of December. However, lending to the SME segment outside the MNB’s programme does not show signs of a recovery despite lending rates being at a historically low level. This part of the lending market can be characterised by a decline in portfolio and, in the case of new disbursements, tight conditions and short maturities, mostly less than two years. In the quarter under review, only one-fifth of the banks participating in the Lending Survey reported an easing in credit conditions. Consequently, also considering past broad-based tightening, credit conditions continue to be excessively tight.
In the household segment, the loan portfolio continued to shrink in Q4, but the volume of newly originated household loans effectively increased in year-on-year terms. Based on banks’ responses in the lending survey, terms and conditions of consumer loans eased, while those of housing loans remained unchanged in the period under examination, but looking six months ahead, the banks already forecast a tightening in conditions for both housing and consumer loans. According to the same survey answers banks do not expect any break in the recovery in the demand experienced in the past quarters in the forthcoming six months. On the whole, the average annual percentage rate of charge of actual new contracts fell in the case of the product types examined, and looking at the rate of the reduction, this meant a decrease in spreads over the reference interest rate.