Road race to close the scissors with the rest of Europe in lending mortgagepassing on positive credit expansion, do the Greek banks.
The “battle” of mortgage loans is given in parallel with the efforts to resolve the housing issue by the government and the Greek banks. In this regard, there is also a study prepared by Alpha Bank to increase the offer of residential real estate, as well as the innovative financial solutions processed by the bank in collaboration with its strategic shareholder, Unicredit.
Recently, Piraeus Bank has announced an agreement with Qualco Technological Provider for the development of digital solutions platform, focusing initially in the mortgage sector. Utilizing the use of artificial intelligence, the platform will improve housing funding experience by simplifying steps from application to disbursement, through automated and digitally supported processes.
In the future, it is foreseen to interconnect the platform with real estate buying platforms. Going one step further, Piraeus Bank also announced a new housing loan, “Home 25”, which offers a 25% lower fixed rate for the first four years and zero request for request. The product acts as an alternative and complementary solution to my state -run home program 2, covering cases where interested parties do not meet the strict income or urban criteria of the program.
The interest rate it offers is fixed for 5 years, and then a wave -based Euribor 1 month, with a fixed margin. For the first 4 years there is a 25% discount on fixed interest rate. Indicatively, if the 5 -year interest rate is 3.5%, then for the first four years it is 2.6%, returning to 3.5%in the 5th year and overwards.
Although mortgages are gradually recovering, credit expansion has not yet passed on positive ground as repayments of older loans remain higher than new disbursements.
As the Hellenic Bank Association of the Hellenic Association of Banks said, the President of the Union and the President of the National Bank, Gikas Chardouvelis, that net lending to individuals remains in negative ground (growth rate in April 2025 at -0.3% against 1.9% in the euro area). As he said, the implementation of my home 2 program is in full swing.
By mid -June, five months after the start of the program, 7,600 applications were approved by the Hellenic Development Bank, covering almost 50% of the total budget or EUR 910 million in a total of EUR 2 billion and had been disbursed the first 750 loans, € 78.6 million.
Unlike loans to individuals, business loans increase rapidly, at a rate of 17.2% annually (April 2025 data). The percentage is significantly higher than the eurozone equivalent, which is 2.6%. Part of the new borrowing is also directed to small and medium -sized enterprises, as well as to co -financed loans of the investment plans of the Recovery Fund.
In the first five months of the year, 15,349 loans to small and medium -sized enterprises totaling € 950 million has been concluded and 478 loans totaling € 11 billion (of which € 6.3 billion from the Recovery Fund resources) have been contracted.