Rising interest rates in the euro zone are affecting borrowers and savers in Austria. Adjustable rate loans have become significantly more expensive. “The monthly interest burden on households and companies has roughly doubled within a year,” said Gottfried Haber, Deputy Governor of the National Bank (OeNB), on Monday at the presentation of the OeNB statistics.
In Austria, the proportion of loans with variable interest rates is particularly high at almost half of the volume. The monthly interest payments to be made by households increased from January 2022 to January 2023 from 148 million to 284 million euros. The average interest rate for new housing loans was 3.33 percent, well above the previous year’s value (1.18 percent). The monthly interest payments to be made by companies have risen from 227 million to 528 million euros, as reported by Johannes Turner, director of the OeNB’s statistics department.
Interest on savings deposits followed suit towards the end of the previous year – i.e. with a time lag. That is “a good sign for the liquidity of the banks. They simply don’t need liquidity that urgently,” said Haber. The average interest rate for deposits with maturities of one to two years rose from 0.14 percent in January 2022 to 2.04 percent in January 2023.
