Ukrainian banks reported having issued 1,113 mortgages to the total amount of UAH 990 million in December 2021. This is the highest monthly indicator since December 2018, according to the banks survey. 20 banks reported issuing new mortgages in the reporting month.
Overall, in 2021, banks issued 10,8 thousand mortgages to the total amount of almost UAH 8.9 billion. In contrast to 2020, new mortgages almost doubled last year in terms of agreements and increased by 2.4 in value.
This is evidenced by findings of the latest bank survey on retail mortgage lending.
The mortgage lending market is very concentrated. Five banks accounted for 90% of new agreements (for UAH 7.5 billion) in 2021.
Banks mostly issue mortgages for house purchase on the secondary market: mortgage agreements in this sector accounted for 90% of all issued mortgage loans in 2021.
Last year, the average size of a loan for house purchase increased from about UAH 663,000 in 2020 to UAH 819,000 in 2021. The average size of a mortgage to purchase property on the primary market was UAH 893,000 in 2021, and on the secondary market – UAH 809,000.
The average weighted effective interest rate on mortgages in December 2021 amounted to 16.1% on the primary market and 13.6% – on the secondary market. In a year the rates decreased by 0.8 pp and by 0.4 pp respectively, regardless that November and December reported a slight increase in both.
In terms of regions, in 2021 most mortgages were issued in Kyiv resulting in 2,800 agreements for UAH 3.1 billion (35% of the total amount). Kyiv region ranked second with 1,600 agreements for UAH 1.7 billion (19%), Kharkiv region accounted for 1,100 agreements for UAH 739 million (8%), Lviv region – 580 agreements for UAH 488 million (6%), and Dnipropetrovsk region – 626 agreements for UAH 407 million (5%).
The monthly surveys of banks represent banks’ own assessments of their mortgage portfolios. Therefore, they may differ from the official data published in the Statistics section of the NBU’s official website.
The reason for such differences primarily lies in banks using management reporting data to compile their mortgage portfolio data sheets. This approach better reflects the type of collateral for loans, and thus the loan categorization criteria.
Banks can clarify reports for previous months, so retrospective changes are expected in the future periods.