TIRANA, Oct 7 /ATA/ The Albanian banking system has reduced lending abroad in the first half of this year.
According to Bank of Albania, at the end of June, lending to non-residents was about ALL 20 billion, or about EUR 160 million. It accounted for 3.4% of the banking sector’s credit surplus, from 4% at the end of 2019 and 4.5% in the middle of last year.
External lending of Albanian banks reached an all time high in mid-2017 at an estimated value of about ALL 70 billion.
After reaching almost 12% of the overall credit, it was restrained at the insistence of the Bank of Albania, which requested the cessation of increased exposures due to the risks related to the difficulties in tracking the activity of the clients.
Bank of Albania points out that the quality of credit remains at satisfactory levels and last year the stock of non-performing credits has dropped. In the middle of this year, the ratio of non-performing loans in the segment of non-resident lending was 3%.
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