The Euribor rate rose to three, six and 12 months from Monday this Tuesday, reaching new highs in the two shortest timeframes since November 2008.
The 12-month Euribor rate, currently the most widely used in Portugal for floating rate home loans, rose this Tuesday and is set at 3.04% plus 0.011 points, but below the maximum since November 2008 of 3.978%, verified on March 9th.
According to March 2023 data from the Bank of Portugal, the 12-month Euribor represents 41% of the ‘stock’ of floating-rate loans for permanent homeowners. The same data shows that the six-month and three-month Euribor represent 33.7% and 22.9% respectively.
The average 12-month Euribor rate increased from 3.647% in March to 3.757% in April, plus 0.110 points.
Within six months, the Euribor rate, which entered positive territory on June 6, 2022, also rose to 3.732% this Tuesday, 0.018 point more than on Monday and a new maximum since November 2008.
The six-month Euribor average rose from 3.267% in March to 3.516% in April, plus 0.249 points.
Similarly, the three-month Euribor, which rose for the first time since April 2015 on July 14, rose to 3.422% this Tuesday, up 0.010 points and a new high since November 2008.
The three-month Euribor average increased from 2.911% in March to 3.179% in April, an increase of 0.268 percentage points.
The Euribor started to rise more sharply from 4 February 2022 after the European Central Bank (ECB) admitted that it could raise key interest rates due to the increase in inflation in the Eurozone and the trend was reinforced with the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
At its most recent monetary policy meeting, on 4 May, the ECB raised key interest rates again for the seventh consecutive time, but only by 25 basis points, a lower increase than on 16 March, 2 February and 15 December, when the pace of the increases began to slow down compared to the two previously recorded increases, which were 75 basis points on October 27 and September 8, respectively.
On 21 July 2022, the ECB raised the three main interest rates by 50 basis points for the first time in 11 years.
The three-, six- and 12-month Euribor rates reached an all-time low, respectively -0.605% on December 14, 2021, -0.554% and -0.518% on December 20, 2021.
The Euribor is determined by the average of the rates at which a group of 57 banks in the eurozone are willing to lend each other money on the interbank market.
Source: DN
