According to the BdP, the 'stock' of loans granted by banks to individuals amounted to 121,356.5 million Euros at the end of last March, up from 120,958.1 million Euros in the previous month and 118,856 million Euros in March 2020.

According to data available on the 'site' of the BdP, it is necessary to go back to May 2015 to find a higher stock of loans to individuals, and in that month this figure reached 121,516.6 million Euros.

In households, housing loans stand out, which continued the upward trajectory recorded since December 2019, adding up to 95,935 million Euros in March, which compares with 95,530.9 million Euros in the previous month and 93,179.4 million Euros year-on-year.

The stock of housing loans stood in March at the highest value since August 2016.

In March, the annual rate of change in loans to individuals for housing was 3.0 percent, increasing 0.3 percentage points compared to February.

In consumer loans, meanwhile, the annual rate of change rose 0.4 percentage points from the previous month to -1.3 percent, with the total amount of consumer loans standing at €18,834.4 million, down from €18,853.7 million in February and €19,115.8 million in March 2020.

Loans for other purposes totalled €6,587 million in March, up €13.5 million from February and up from €6,560.8 million in March 2020.

As for non-performing loans, in mortgages it remained at 0.6 percent in March, the same as in February and below the 0.8 percent of the same month a year ago.

As for consumer credit and other loans, non-performing loans accounted for 6.3 percent in March, having also remained stable compared to February and below the 6.7 percent of March 2020.

The data released by the central bank also indicate that deposits by individuals in resident banks once again reached record levels, totalling 164,596.3 million Euros at the end of March, with the respective annual rate of change standing at 8.2 percent, 0.7 percentage points below that recorded in February.