Interest rate spread up in March

The interest rate spread between new deposits and loans increased to 5.50 percentage points in March as the weighted average interest rate on new deposits remained almost unchanged at 0.23%, while the corresponding rate on new loans increased to 5.73%, the Bank of Greece said on Friday.

More specifically, in March 2023, the weighted average interest rate on outstanding amounts of deposits increased to 0.26%, while the corresponding rate on loans increased to 5.69%.The interest rate spread between outstanding amounts of deposits and loans increased to 5.43 percentage points.

In particular, the average interest rates on overnight deposits placed by households and non-financial corporations remained unchanged at 0.03% and 0.10% respectively. The average interest rate on deposits from households with an agreed maturity of up to 1 year increased by 12 basis points to 1.16%. The corresponding rate on deposits from non-financial corporations increased by 19 basis points to 1.47%. It should be noted that a large part of new deposits by households is currently placed in deposits with an agreed maturity of over 1 year.