The institution said that out of the total €12.39 billion loans, some 4.37 percent or €542 million had been defaulted on or was otherwise deemed unlikely to be recovered.
This figure, in turn, is up from €510 million at the end of 2013 when that represented 3.98 percent of the amount of outstanding loans owed to the financial system.
The Bank of Portugal reported that this rise in bad debt derived from mortgage loan,s with the amount of shorter term credit loans getting defaulted on having slid between 2013 and 2014, down from 11.77 percent to 10.32 percent.
Correspondingly, in 2013, mortgage loan defaults totalled 2.27 percent of the total and loaned for the purpose of properties and that had risen twelve months later to 2.52 percent.
In terms of companies, Portugal’s central bank said that 14.4 percent, up from 11.8 percent in 2013, of corporate loans had entered into default as of the end of last year and hence some €862 million out of the €12.4 billion loaned to Portuguese companies and firms.
In particular, 23.8 percent of funding loaned out to construction communities is currently failing to get serviced.