Eurozone loan growth picks up pace in August
Growth in lending to companies and households in the eurozone sped up in August, European Central Bank data showed Thursday, in an encouraging sign for the institution as it withdraws stimulus from the economy.
The pace of credit growth to the private sector climbed to 3.4 percent year-on-year last month, adjusting for some purely financial transactions, 0.1 percentage point faster than in July.
Looking in more detail at the data, expansion in lending to households added 0.1 percentage points, reaching 3.1 percent, while growth in credit to firms reached 4.2 percent, up by 0.2 points.
The faster growth in lending to the real economy comes as the ECB prepares the final steps in its gradual withdrawal of "quantitative easing" stimulus to the eurozone economy.
Introduced in 2015, the mass bond-buying scheme currently sees the bank buy 30 billion euros ($35.1 billion) of government and corporate bonds per month, aiming to pump cash through the financial system to stoke lending, economic growth and inflation.
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