The Central Bank presented on Thursday, February 25 a report on the status of loans and deposits in the banking system in Cyprus for January 2021.
According to the Central Bank, the number of deposits in local banks decreased in January 2021, while loans, on the contrary, increased.
Deposits
The volume of deposits in the Cypriot banking system in January 2021 recorded a net decrease of € 349.3 million, compared with a net increase of € 362.6 million in December 2020. The annual growth rate was 0.2% and remained stable compared to December 2020. The balance of deposits in January 2021 reached € 47.9 billion. In total the amount of deposits in Cyprus decreased in 2020 by € 521.1 million.
Loans
The total volume of new loans in January 2021 recorded a net increase of € 2.8 million, compared with a net increase of € 583.7 million in December 2020. The annual growth rate was 3.1% (it was 2.7% in December 2020). The total loan balance in January 2021 reached € 31.8 billion. At the same time, the amount of loans issued in 2020 decreased by € 1.9 billion.
The Central Bank noted that the moratorium on the payment of loan contributions (introduced by a decree of the Minister of Finance in March 2020 in the amount of € 10.5 billion) ended on December 31, 2020.
The new decree (issued in January 2021) deals with loans with a much lower total value, which results in significantly less additional impact of the suspension of installment payments on the above changes in loans.