Short-term interest rates drop further

The floating lending rate to households decreased by 0.52 percentage points compared to December and was 3.54 percent in January. However the long-term interest rates have been slightly raised. Households' loans taken in January with a fixed period of more than five years had an average interest rate of 4.59 percent, which was 0.34 percentage points higher than in December.

Households choose to take the majority of their new loans with floating interest rates. Of the new loans taken in January to households from housing credit institutions, 68.5 percent of the amount loaned was at a floating interest rate while 31.5 percent of the amount loaned was at a fixed interest rate. In December 64.6 percent chose the floating interest rate.

Lending rates to non-financial corporations have followed the same direction as interest rates to households. MFI's interest rates on new loans to non-financial corporations were an average of 3.06 percent in January, which was 0.38 percentage points lower than in December when the interest rate was 3.44 percent.

Deposit rates also went down in January. The average interest rate for households' bank deposits was 1.18 percent, which can be compared to 1.20 percent in December. Interest rates for households' fixed deposits with banks have decreased from 2.91 percent in December to 2.20 percent in January.

Decreasing growth rate for household loans

The annual growth rate for MFIs household lending was 8.6 percent in January. This is lower than in December when the growth rate was 9.0 percent on an annual basis. The growth rate for household loans has been on a downward trend since the start of 2006 when it was over 13 percent.

Households had total loans from MFIs valued at SEK 2 145 billion, which is an increase of SEK 5 billion compared to December. The increase from November to December was SEK 19 billion. However, it should be noted that there is a seasonal variation that applies to household loans that has higher new lending in December and lower new lending in January. Lending for housing purposes amounted to a total of SEK 1 404 billion by the end of January, an increase by SEK 8 billion compared to December. Loans for consumption amounted to SEK 144 billion and have decreased by SEK 1 billion during January.

The annual growth rate for MFI lending to non-financial corporations decreased from 10.9 percent in December to 10.6 percent in January. Total lending to non-financial corporations amounted to SEK 1 774 billion then.

Growth rate of the money supply decreased

The narrow monetary aggregate M1 in January had an annual growth rate of 5.0 percent, which is somewhat lower than in December when the growth rate was 5.4 percent. M1 amounted to a total of SEK 1 486 billion in January.

The broad monetary aggregate M3 also had a lower growth rate in January than in December. The growth rate was 5.7 percent in January, which is a reduction from 8.2 percent in December. M3 amounted to SEK 2 225 billion in January which is SEK 38 billion lower than in December.

M1 consists of the public's holding of banknotes and coins as well as demand deposits by the public in MFIs and with the central government. In addition to M1, M3 also includes deposits with certain conditions, repurchases, shares in money market funds, and short term securities.