Consumer credit provided by banks and other entities, through cards, reached 855 million euros in October – which compares with 747 million euros in October 2024.
In October, the stock consumer credit covered 6.3 million live contracts, worth 23.7 billion euros.
The majority, according to the data provided, “corresponded to renewable credit (3.7 million contracts) although this modality represented only 17% of the amount of outstanding credit, that is, 4 billion euros”.
Car credit represented the largest share of the amount, with 10.36 billion euros, while personal credit had an outstanding balance of 9.27 billion euros.
Higher interest rates on credit cards
Data from Banco de Portugal now allows us to know the average contractual cost if you pay with a credit card and do not repay 100% of what you spent at the end of the month, as well as the average contractual cost if you request car financing from car intermediaries. stands and also personal credit, which is normally requested at the bank.
In the statistics now published, it can be seen that by type of credit, renewable credit (bank cards and others) “is the most relevant category in terms of number of contracts, representing 58% of the total number per month, but it is the least relevant in terms of amount: it represents on average 18% of the total amount of new credits”, highlights the Bank of Portugal. But it is precisely in this type of credit that the interest rate is highest: in the last six years it went from 14.3% to 17.9%.
In personal credit, the effective annual rate (APR) increased by 2.2 percentage points over the last six years, which means that the average cost of contracted credit has an average rate of 12%. In car credit, the APR is now 10.4%, compared to 8.4% in 2019, an increase of 2 percentage points.
In October the stock consumer credit covered 6.3 million live contracts, worth 23.7 billion euros.