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Macroprudential Measures Related to Retail Loans Granted by Credit Institutions 

At its meeting held on 28 December 2021, the CBCG Council adopted the Decision on Macroprudential Measures Related to Retail Loans Granted by Credit Institutions (OGM 138/21). This decision repeals the initial Decision on Macroprudential Measures Related to Retail Banking Loans (OGM 58/19 and 107/20) that targeted the same issue.

The measures were adopted with the aim of establishing the sustainability of retail lending, in the context of preserving financial stability by the CBCG. Namely, in recent years, we have witnessed a notable growth in the amount of cash loans, their share in total loans, as well as the extension of maturities of these loans (see Box 3 in the Financial System Stability Report for 2018). As a rule, only bills of exchange and administrative bans were used as security for retail loans. The continuation of this trend could make credit institutions much more vulnerable in the event of an economic and financial crisis, which would directly affect borrowers' earnings and reduce their credit capacity, which would further affect credit institutions and possibly their willingness to extend loans and the terms and conditions of those loans. The aforesaid decision has been in effect as of 1 January 2022 and it has been subject to amendments two times, extending the initially prescribed decision validity from one to two years and now, with the most recent amendment, to three years, so the measures will remain in effect until the end of 2024.

Basically, the decision stipulates that credit institutions may grant retail cash loans with a maturity exceeding eight years only against good quality collateral in the form of immovable and movable property or in any other adequate way. Furthermore, credit institutions whose amount of retail cash loans with a residual maturity of over six years exceeds 50% of their own funds may grant retail cash loans with a maturity of more than six years only against the abovementioned collateral. Finally, credit institutions whose share of non-performing cash loans in total cash loans with an agreed maturity over six years that have not been properly collateralised is below 3.5%, may grant cash loans whose maturities may exceed the aforesaid eight year and six year maturities respectively, for 2 additional years.