Caixa Geral de Depósitos, the last of the large banks to present accounts, said it had restructured more than 40,000 credits by October.

As for other banks, which had already presented their results, Santander Totta renegotiated more than 36 thousand housing loans from the beginning of the year until September. Novo Banco made 17,700 renegotiations and BCP made more than 16,000 renegotiations.

BPI did not disclose the total number of renegotiations, only mentioning that the credits renegotiated until September have a total value of 950 million euros. Only under the Government's decree law (80-A/2022) were renegotiated credits worth 414 million euros, covering 3,400 customers, he said.

Thousands of loan renegotiations are carried out under Government legislation, but the majority are by commercial agreement between customer and bank (commercial renegotiation).

Credit renegotiations can be done in several ways, by reducing the 'spread' (bank's commercial profit margin), increasing the credit payment period, or a grace period in the payment of capital (for example, for one year customer only pays interest, which lowers the monthly instalment but capitalises the missing amount in the future).

The rise in interest rates has created problems for many families paying mortgage loans, as they have an effect on variable rate contracts with a significant increase in monthly instalments.