TIRANA, April 27 – The central Bank of Albania made public Monday the results of a lending survey for the first quarter this year, which repeated that second-level banks have tightened their lending standards applied to businesses and households.
The central bank said that standards of lending to businesses were tightened for the second quarter in a row, while for individuals there have been easier standards on housing purchase and consumer loan.
Despite the growth of savings in the banks they have been very cautious due to the bad loans that have reached about one-fourth of the total and have seriously threatened their cash systems.
The bank report also said that other factors for such a tightening of the loans are also the household and business’s financial situation, non-performing loans and specific problems facing the business environment.
Consequently the demand for loans in the first quarter this year has decreased for businesses and slowly increased for individuals compared to the previous quarter.
