At the end of August 2018, household lending in Croatia totalled 122.4 billion kuna (€16.5 billion), or 4.6 percent up year-on-year, posting an increase for the 12th month in a row, analysts of the Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) said on Thursday, commenting on the recently published central bank figures.

That was the highest amount of household lending since January 2016. In July 2018, the year-on-year increase was 4.1 percent.

At the end of August 2018, household loans denominated in the domestic currency totalled 62.5 billion kuna (€8.4 billion), up by 341 million kuna (€46 million) month-on-month and 14.9 percent year-on-year. Kuna-denominated household loans have been steadily increasing since the first half of 2013.

On the other hand, household loans denominated in foreign currencies have been declining since 2012. At the end of August 2018, they totalled 59.8 billion kuna (€8 billion), down by 4.3 percent year-on-year.

The share of household loans denominated in the local currency kuna has gone up by about 4 percentage points in the past year, to 51 percent, RBA said.

More than 43 percent of household loans were housing loans, which totalled 52.9 billion kuna (€7.1 billion) at the end of August 2018, going up 0.4 percent on the month, and 3.2 percent on the year, increasing for the tenth month running.

Kuna-denominated housing loans reached almost 15 billion kuna (€2 billion) at the end of August 2018, up about 20 percent on the year. The share of kuna housing loans rose to 28.3 percent of all housing loans, an increase of 4 percentage points in only a year, RBA said.

On the other hand, housing loans pegged to foreign currencies dropped by 2.3 percent year-on-year to 37.9 billion kuna (€5.1 billion).

General purpose loans, which account for nearly 38 percent of all household loans, totalled 46.4 billion kuna (€6.2 billion) at the end of August 2018, up by 10.5 percent on the year. Around 71 percent of these were denominated in the local currency.

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