Individuals looking to buy new homes are still having a hard time getting loans in Albanian banks.
TIRANA Jan. 27 – Concerned by the financial and economic crisis, Albania’s banks are being very tight-handed with giving out mortgages, and individual families are the customers to suffer most, according to the Bank of Albania.
“Credit activity of banks has slowed, marking an annual growth of the loan portfolio of only 12 percent,” the central bank said in a statement released this week. “And credit for businesses carried the main weight in the expanding loan portfolio, while consumer credit and mortgages contracted.”
Experts say the low levels of credit expansion, in part, reflect the decline of demand for consumption and investment as a result of the weak economy.
But the Bank of Albania says future credit performance will be an important factor on the economy’s recovery.
And the central bank statement adds, “the banking system can and should make more of an effort to transmit monetary policy by providing more credit to the economy.”
Bank of Albania has for several months urged Albanian commercial banks to lend more. It repeated in its latest statement that it stands ready to help the banking system with the necessary measures to reactivate the credit markets.
