Credit expansion picks up but mortgages drop
Greece’s total credit expansion accelerated to a 17.1 percent annual pace in July from 16.5 percent in June but the pace of mortgage growth slowed to the lowest level in almost 10 years. Provisional data from Bank of Greece, the country’s central bank, showed yesterday that lending to households, including mortgages and consumer credit, slowed to a 17.8 percent annual pace in July compared with 18.6 percent in June. Robust household borrowing has been feeding bank profits in the last years. Economists believe the data reflect a slowdown in domestic consumption and that the slowdown in lending to households will continue in the second half. A slowing global economy has started to weigh on Greek economic expansion, which grew by 3.5 percent in the second quarter, down from 3.6 percent in the previous quarter.
