Euribor rates fall across all maturities
Euribor rates fell today across all maturities and at three and 12 months to new lows since May 2023 and December 2022, respectively.
With today’s changes, the three-month rate, which fell to 3.402%, remained above the six-month rate (3.196%) and the 12-month rate (2.858%).
The six-month Euribor rate, which in January became the most widely used in Portugal for variable-rate housing loans and which was above 4% between September 14 and December 1, 2023, fell today to 3.196%, 0.016 points less than in the previous session.
Data from the Bank of Portugal (BdP) for July indicate that the six-month Euribor is the most widely used, representing 37.1% of the stock of loans for permanent homeownership with variable rates. The same data indicate that the 12-month and three-month Euribor represented 34.2% and 25.4%, respectively.
In the same sense, in the 12-month period, the Euribor rate, which was above 4% between June 16 and November 29, fell today to 2.858%, 0.044 points less than on Monday and a new low since December 9, 2022.
The three-month Euribor also fell today, being set at 3.402%, down 0.029 points and a new low since May 18, 2023.
At its most recent monetary policy meeting on 12 September, the ECB cut its main policy rate by 25 basis points to 3.5%, after having left its key interest rates unchanged on 18 July.
At its previous meeting in June, the ECB had cut key interest rates by 25 basis points, after having kept them at their highest level since 2001 for five meetings and having made 10 increases since 21 July 2022.
On Wednesday, September 18, it was the turn of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) to cut interest rates by 50 basis points, the first reduction since 2020.
The ECB’s next monetary policy meeting will take place on 17 October in Slovenia.
Analysts expect Euribor rates to reach around 3% by the end of the year.
The Euribor average in August fell again at three, six and 12 months, but more sharply in the longer term, having fallen 0.137 points to 3.548% at three months (against 3.685% in July), 0.219 points to 3.425% at six months (against 3.644%) and 0.360 points to 3.166% at 12 months (against 3.526%).
Euribor is set by the average of the rates at which a group of 19 eurozone banks are willing to lend money to each other on the interbank market.
Source: www.jornaldenegocios.pt
