Results of the January 2013 euro area bank lending survey

30-1-2013 — /europawire.eu/ — The European Central Bank (ECB) is publishing today its report on the results of the January 2013 euro area bank lending survey. The bank lending survey, which is conducted four times a year, usually at the beginning of each quarter, was developed by the Eurosystem in order to enhance the understanding of bank lending behaviour in the euro area.

The results reported in the January 2013 survey relate to changes in the fourth quarter of 2012 and to expectations of changes in the first quarter of 2013. Four ad hoc questions were included in the questionnaire for the January 2013 survey: one question addressing the impact of the financial turmoil on access to retail and wholesale funding; one on the impact of the sovereign debt crisis on banks’ funding conditions, credit standards and credit margins; and two on the likely impact of ongoing regulatory changes on banks’ lending policies (via the potential impact on capital positions, credit standards and credit margins).

The January 2013 bank lending survey was conducted between 14 December 2012 and 10 January 2013. With 131 euro area banks participating in the survey, the response rate was 100%.

The report is available on the ECB’s website in the “Statistics” section under “Monetary and financial statistics”/“Surveys”/“Bank lending survey”.

Detailed data series for the aggregate euro area results as well as the country-level results in terms of net percentages and/or the diffusion index for 11 euro area countries are available on the ECB’s website via the ECB’s Statistical Data Warehouse. In addition, the ECB’s website also provides links to the national results as published by the respective national central banks.