The Central Bank has pre-released three signed articles from the forthcoming Quarterly Bulletin 2 of 2016

The Central Bank has pre-released three signed articles from the forthcoming Quarterly Bulletin 2 of 2016. 

An Overview of the Enhanced Interest Rate Statistics for Ireland

An enhanced interest rate statistics framework was implemented in Ireland and across the euro area at the beginning of 2015, facilitating a more precise assessment of household and Non-Financial Corporations developments.  These enhanced statistics show:

New business mortgage rates for Ireland were significantly impacted by renegotiations, a trend which is not evident across the euro area.

A shift from floating rate to fixed rate mortgages, and significant variations in rates charged to SMEs depending on their sector of economic activity.

Irish SME Investment in Economic Recovery

Ireland’s economy is recovering strongly.  However, little is known about small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) investment since the recovery began.  The key findings in this paper are:

The share of SMEs investing has increased steadily since 2012, particularly smaller, domestically-focused enterprises.

These SMEs are more likely to be reacting to improvements in the domestic economy.
The majority of SME investment is funded by retained earnings.

Understanding SME Interest Rate Variations Across Europe

The European Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) credit market has been characterised by sharp divergences in borrowing costs facing firms since the financial crisis.  This paper finds:

• Differences are not well-explained by the characteristics of the companies themselves.
• SME borrowing costs are higher in countries with higher stocks of defaulted SME loans, higher probability of future SME default, higher national unemployment, more severe perceptions of banking sector financial stress, higher government borrowing costs, and weaker levels of bank competition.