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The debts of citizens and businesses to the banks have decreased by around one billion euro after the growing crisis in the country. Demand for consumer loans and credit card use declined significantly with the growth of the economic crisis. At the same time there is an increase in interest rates offered on loans, which inevitably leads to an even deeper recession in the country.

According to figures provided by the Bank of Greece, set out in the Greek Ethnos edition, only for the months December 2009 January 2010 the total debts of households and individuals to banks decreased by 79 million euro. From 119.635 billion euros at the end of last year, to 119.556 billion euro in the first month of this year. Specialists point out that this trend of decline in demand for loans and credit services will be strengthened in the near future. During the two months a slight increase was observed in the supply of mortgage loans increased by around 78 million euros. Of course, this increase is insignificant compared to the trend observed in the period 2004-2008, when demand increases mortgage loans had an average margin of one billion euro per month. For the same period, demand for consumer loans and credit cards grew by around 500 billion euro a month.

Several months after the outbreak of the global economic crisis and the growth of financial problems within the country, demand for loans sharply decreased. A clear example of this is the total amount of new loans granted in 2009, which only reached 2.43 billion euro for the year. Bankers, in turn, explained that today it is much more difficult to be granted consumer loan without robust guarantees. Experts state that real estate or ensuring by other assets provides the best opportunity to secure a loan today.

At the same time in the last quarter interest rates became double. The difference of 4 points melt and the minimum price of corporate loans reached 10 percent. "Immediately to bring down the price of the spread because the cost of borrowing from Greek banks is extremely expensive and the worst it affects the small businesses that can not finance their activities " says banking expert.

Photo: c. Ethnos