Abi: loans rose by 3.7 per cent in September. Mortgage rates stand at 3.6 per cent
Non-performing loans are on the rise: they have increased from 26 billion in May to 28.2 billion in the summer month. They account for 1.32 per cent of total loans.
Key points
Bank lending continues to rise, growing for the twenty-first consecutive month, recording in September a 3.7 per cent increase (compared with 3.5 per cent in July). This is highlighted in the ABI’s September monthly bulletin, which also shows a slight rise in the cost of mortgages, up to 3.61 per cent (an increase of 0.06 per cent), a level lower than the 3.9 per cent calculated by the Bank of Italia in its ‘Banks and Money’ statistics published in recent days. This month’s bulletin also highlights the trend in non-performing loans: non-performing loans stood at 28.2 billion in August, up from the figure reported for May, when they totalled around 26 billion.
Loans set to rise from March 2025
Total lending to businesses and households rose by 3.7 per cent year-on-year, accelerating from the previous month’s figure (+3.5 per cent), continuing the upward trend in lending that began in March 2025. For households, this marks the twenty-first consecutive month of growth, whilst for businesses it is the fifteenth consecutive month of growth in lending. In fact, in August 2026, loans to businesses rose by 4.2 per cent, whilst those to households rose by 2.9 per cent.
Mortgage rate at 3.61%
The average interest rate on total loans (i.e. those taken out over the years) stood at 4.24 per cent (+0.05 per cent compared with the previous month). The average interest rate on new loans for house purchases rose to 3.61 per cent (+0.06 per cent compared with the previous month; it stood at 4.42 per cent in December 2023); the average rate on new business loans rose to 3.77 per cent (+0.06 per cent compared with the previous month; it stood at 5.45 per cent in December 2023)
Loan impairment rate at 2.8 per cent in 2026
In August 2026, net non-performing loans totalled €28.2 billion. Net impaired loans accounted for 1.32 per cent of total loans. According to the ABI-Cerved Outlook for the three-year period 2026–2028, the corporate loan impairment rate (calculated as the ratio of the number of impaired loan positions – past due loans, probable defaults or non-performing loans – during the year to the stock of non-impaired positions at the start of the year) is forecast to rise from 2.6 per cent in 2025 to 2.8 per cent in 2026 and 2.9 per cent in 2027, before falling slightly to 2.8 per cent in 2028. Between 2025 and 2028, the sharpest increases in the deterioration rate are expected for medium-sized enterprises, from 1.8 per cent to 2.1 per cent, and for the construction sector, from 2.9 per cent to 3.2 per cent. In 2028, the highest figures are expected to be recorded amongst micro-enterprises (3.0 per cent), in the South (3.7 per cent) and in the construction sector (3.2 per cent).
Deposits up by 1.9 per cent
In September 2026, deposits, in all their various forms, rose by 1.9 per cent year-on-year (+1.7 per cent the previous month). Medium- and long-term funding, via bonds, increased by 6.4 per cent in September 2026 compared with a year earlier (+6.2 per cent the previous month). Indirect funding – that is, investments in securities held in custody by banks – rose by 95 billion between August 2025 and August 2026.
