Erste Bank has reduced interest rates on most models of newly approved cash loans by an average of 1.1 percentage points, the bank announced.
The change applies to cash loan models with and without client status, with and without guarantors, with and without guarantee deposits, models with insurance policies, and models with residual value. Thus, interest rates on these models of newly approved cash loans, depending on the selected model and creditworthiness assessment, range from 8.99% to 10.90%. Previously, interest rates in this segment ranged from 10.20% to 11.90%. At the same time, interest rates on newly approved revolving cash loans have also been reduced, now ranging from 10.50% to 11.75%, depending on the client’s creditworthiness assessment, compared to the previous range of 11.50% to 12.95%. For the cash loan model with residual value, the maximum loan amount has been increased to €30,000.00 (depending on the creditworthiness assessment). In addition, for some newly approved cash loans, processing fees have also been reduced by 0.5 percentage points.
In the first five months of 2010, Erste Bank issued a total of approximately 11,450 cash loans with a total value of around 650 million kuna. Although, in terms of total value of placements, this represents about three percent lower value of newly approved cash loans compared to the same period last year, there is a noticeable increase in the number of realized loans by more than 25%. In the segment of household lending in general, Erste Bank achieved a growth of 0.5% in the first five months of this year, while the banking market simultaneously recorded an average decline of 0.1%. Accordingly, Erste Bank increased its market share in this segment from 13.09% at the end of 2009 to 13.17% as of May 31, 2010, the announcement states.
