Bankers and borrowers disagree about European housing

The European Central Bank’s latest quarterly bank lending survey shows that lending standards are getting looser and that demand for credit is rising. Lorcan Roche Kelly of Agenda Research summarised the main findings with this handy chart:

Negative numbers for the orange-ish lines mean that lending standards have loosened (slightly), meaning credit is easier to get. Positive numbers for the green and blue lines mean that demand for loans is increasing. Overall the supply of loans is still shrinking, but not as fast as it was in recent years and loan growth could even return by the end of 2015 if current trends hold up. That said, we can’t help but note the large difference visible in the chart between loans to households (orange and beige) and loans to businesses (red).