The President of the Republic this morning considered it essential to think about home loans in terms of conditions, rates and installments, highlighting the harmful social consequences of the rise in interest rates and the current positive period for the banking system.
This warning was conveyed by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in statements to journalists, after a visit to the Banco Alimentar Contra a Fome (BA), in Alcântara, Lisbon, where he arrived around 11 p.m. and was received by the president of the institution, Isabel Jonet.
“On the domestic level, there is a problem that deserves attention, as the Portuguese are very dependent on bank loans, since at the European level they are among those who are very committed to buying a house and short-term loans. This has led to a more severe punishment , not least because there is no rigid setting of rates and deadlines, which are updated as interest rates rise,” said the head of state.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said he was waiting for inflation to gradually fall, but noted that “it is clear that mortgage lending is a problem that should provoke reflection on terms, rates and terms”.
“There is a problem that needs to be addressed one of these days. It is that the financial system, namely banking, had complicated problems, [mas] at the moment it is in a less complicated period. In terms of bad debt, it’s in a more positive period,” he noted.
In other words, one has to ask “how far should banking continue to go to compensate for previous negative periods [atual] positive period”.
The president of the republic said he had access to figures, although he did not guarantee their exact nature, according to which the banks “finally had a profit margin on mortgage lending clearly higher than the European average”.
Shortly afterwards, however, he noted that the bank also had bigger problems than the European average in previous years.
Source: DN
