Frontier Statistics: Household Debt

An Exploration of Household Loans within the Quarterly Financial Accounts - Q4 2024

The Quarterly Financial Accounts (QFA) dataset presents a complete and consistent set of financial data for all sectors of the Irish economy. It provides comprehensive information on the financial and investment activities of households, non-financial corporations, financial corporations, government and the rest of the world.

Within the QFA, data on loans to households are available with a maturity split and counterpart sector breakdown. However, no data is available on the purpose of these household loans. This Frontier Statistics series fills this data gap, providing a breakdown of household loans from domestic counterparts by purpose, into mortgages and other loans. It provides a further breakdown of mortgage loans into home loans and buy-to-let mortgages. This breakdown of household debt is achieved by combining the QFA household loan liabilities series with data from Credit and Banking Statistics and the Central Credit Register (CCR). This additional breakdown of domestic loans to households can help enhance the understanding of risks faced by households and how these have evolved over time. Differences between these statistics may be explained in the explanatory notes.

Key Observations

  • Banks are the largest domestic lenders to Irish households, accounting for €103.8 billion of the €155.8 billion outstanding loans. Home loans (€106.7 billion) are the key loan purpose as of Q4 2024.
  • Mortgages account for 75% of total household loans as of Q4 2024. This share has been steady in recent quarters.
  • The share of buy-to-let within total household mortgage loans has decreased from 14% to 9% since Q4 2020. While the OFIs (Other Financial Institutions) share of buy-to-let loans increased from 57% to 76%, this includes some bank loans being transferred to OFIs, as well as new lending from OFIs.
  • The overall share of household mortgages with OFIs has increased in recent years; total mortgage loans from OFIs of €24.5 billion in Q4 2020 rose to €30.7 billion in Q4 2024. 

Publication note: This series is subject to change and will be updated on a quarterly basis. Historical data can be accessed in the data file at the end of this page.


Overview – Total Loans to Irish Households

€156Bn
Key Indicator – Total Loans to Households

Total loans from domestic lenders to Irish households was €156 billion in Q4 2024.

Home loans account for the largest share of total household loan liabilities, averaging around two thirds of total loan liabilities.

Chart 1: Breakdown of loans to households by loan purpose (Q1 2020 – Q4 2024)

Bar chart showing the total amount and percentage of loans to households by loan purpose – home loans, buy-to-let and other loans to households.


Source: QFA, Credit and Banking Statistics, CCR and authors calculations.
Notes: The time series tracks the share of loans to households from domestic counterparts by loan purpose – home loans, buy-to-let and other loans to households. The ranking remains steady, with home loans dominating total loans, followed by other loans to households and buy-to-let.
Accessibility: Get the data in accessible format (XLSX 20.34KB)


Home loans account for the majority share (68.5%) of the total loans to households.

Chart 2: Breakdown of loans to households by loan purpose (Q4 2024)

Gauge plot of the percentage of loans to households by loan purpose – home loans, other loans to households and buy-to-let.


Source: QFA, Credit and Banking Statistics, CCR and authors calculations.
Notes: The chart shows that in Q4 2024, home loans dominate total household loans, accounting for 68.5% of the total loans to households.

Accessibility: Get the data in accessible format. (XLSX 14.26KB)


Overview – Mortgages split by purpose

Home Loans

Banks are the dominant provider of home loans to households.

Chart 3: Home loan mortgages split by loan lenders (Q1 2020 – Q4 2024)

Bar chart showing the total amount and percentage of home loan mortgages by loan provider – banks, OFIs and government.


Source: QFA, Credit and Banking Statistics, CCR and authors calculations.
Notes: The chart shows the time series for home loans split by loan lenders; banks, OFIs and government. There is a steady increase in home loan liabilities, from €85 billion in Q4 2020 to €107 billion in Q4 2024. A small share of home loans are with government counterpart, averaging less than 1% over the past 5 years.
Accessibility: Get the data in accessible format. (XLSX 21.48KB)


The majority of home loan mortgages (78.1%) are provided by banks.

Chart 4: Home loan mortgages split by loan lenders (Q4 2024)

Donut chart of the percentage of home loan mortgage liabilities per lender type in Q4 2024.


Source: QFA, Credit and Banking Statistics, CCR and authors calculations.
Notes: The chart highlights that more than two thirds of Irish household home loans are with domestic banks in Q4 2024 and less than 1% of home loans in the quarter are with the government sector.
Accessibility: Get the data in accessible format. (XLSX 31.24KB)


Buy-to-Let Mortgages

OFIs are the dominant provider of household buy-to-let mortgages.

Chart 5: Buy-to-let mortgages split by loan lenders (Q1 2020 – Q4 2024)

Bar chart showing the total amount and percentage of buy-to-let mortgages by loan provider – banks, OFIs and government.


Source: QFA, Credit and Banking Statistics, CCR and authors calculations.
Notes: A decrease in the volume of household buy-to-let mortgage loans is visible across the time series. OFIs hold the largest share, increasing from 57% in Q4 2020 to 76% in Q4 2024. This will include some bank loans being sold to OFIs.
Accessibility: Get the data in accessible format. (XLSX 25.15KB)


The majority of buy-to-let mortgages (75.6%) are provided by OFIs.

Chart 6: Buy-to-let mortgages split by loan lenders (Q4 2024)

Donut chart of the percentage of buy-to-let mortgage liabilities per lender type in Q4 2024.


Source: QFA, Credit and Banking Statistics, CCR and authors calculations.
Notes: The chart shows that OFIs accounted for 75.6% of outstanding household buy-to-let mortgage loans in Q4 2024. Banks account for 24.4% of the total share.
Accessibility: Get the data in accessible format. (XLSX 19.46KB)


Overview – Household Loan Lenders

Banks are the largest lender for household mortgage loans, with home loans being the main purpose for borrowing.

Chart 7: Loan lender and loan purpose across household loans (Q4 2024)

Sankey diagram demonstrating the value of loans by lender and loan type.


Source: QFA, Credit and Banking Statistics, CCR and authors calculations.
Notes: The Sankey diagram shows that in Q4 2024 domestic banks were the largest lender to Irish households, accounting for €103.8 billion of the €155.8 billion outstanding loans. Home loans (€106.7 billion) accounted for the largest share of total loans.
Accessibility: Get the data in accessible format. (XLSX 21.32KB)


Overview – Bank Mortgages

€83.4Bn
Key Indicator – Home Loans

Home Loan Mortgages from Banks in Q4 2024 were €83.4 billion.

€2.6Bn
Key Indicator – Buy-to-Let

Buy-to-Let Mortgages from Banks in Q4 2024 were €2.6 billion.

Bank mortgage loans to households are concentrated in home loans, with the buy-to-let share steadily declining in recent years. 

Chart 8: Bank mortgages split by loan purpose (Q1 2020 – Q4 2024)

Bar chart showing the total amount and percentage of bank mortgages by loan purpose – home loan and buy-to-let.


Source: QFA, Credit and Banking Statistics and authors calculations.
Notes: The majority of household mortgage loans from banks were for the purpose of home loans (97% in Q4 2024) and this has been increasing across the time series. There has been a steady decline in buy-to-let mortgages from banks in recent years, falling from 8% in Q4 2020 to 3% in Q4 2024.
Accessibility: Get the data in accessible format. (XLSX 11KB)


Overview – OFI Mortgages

€22.5Bn
Key Indicator – Home Loans

Home Loan Mortgages from OFIs in Q4 2024 were €22.5 billion.

€8.2Bn
Key Indicator – Buy-to-Let

Buy-to-Let Mortgages from OFIs in Q4 2024 were €8.2 billion.

Household mortgage liabilities with OFIs increased substantially in 2024.

Chart 9: OFIs mortgages split by loan purpose (Q1 2020 – Q4 2024)

Bar chart showing the total amount and percentage of OFI mortgages by loan purpose – home loan and buy-to-let.


Source: QFA, CCR and authors calculations.
Notes: The chart shows an increase in household mortgage loan liabilities with domestic OFIs in 2024. This includes any new lending from OFIs as well as purchases of existing loans to households by the OFI sector. The time series shows a decline in buy-to-let mortgages, falling from a 32% share in Q4 2020 to a 27% share of total OFIs in 2024. However, buy-to-let mortgages from OFIs continue to account for a much larger share of total OFI loans to households than that of the banking sector, reflected in the OFI share of total buy-to-let mortgages increasing across the time series.
Accessibility: Get the data in accessible format. (XLSX 10.96KB)


Data

Household Mortgage Loans Frontier Statistics Tables | xlsx 44 KB

Background

This Frontier Statistics presents data on Irish household loan liabilities with domestic counterparts within Quarterly Financial Accounts (QFA) by lender and loan type. This includes a further breakdown of mortgage loans into home loans and buy-to-let. Thereby, this data enhances household analysis within the official series of QFA, applying information on loans by lender and loan purpose from the Central Credit Register (CCR) and Credit and Banking Statistics on household loan liabilities by counterpart sector data available in QFA.

This data is published for the first time as a Frontier Statistics release, indicating that the methods and data within are subject to revision. This data will be updated on a quarterly basis. You can learn more about the Frontier Statistics project on the What Are Frontier Statistics webpage.

Coverage and Scope

Data on household debt in this Frontier Statistics is subject to the same coverage and scope as in QFA. QFA covers household debt by counterpart sector, i.e. it shows the loans that households borrow from other institutional sectors. QFA captures aggregates for the sectors only, and breaks down loans only by original maturity. QFA includes a breakdown of household loan liabilities into resident and non-resident counterparts. This frontier statistics considers only the loan liabilities of Irish households with domestic counterpart sectors.

The CCR provides granularity on loans to individuals, and information on the types of lenders and loans, for details visit Central Credit Register website. This publication groups the lenders in the CCR into resident banks and OFI lenders (other financial institutions) as well as government, to align with the QFA counterpart sectors.

Data Checks and Revisions

As part of the Frontier Statistics series, the Household Debt publication will undergo continuous revisions each quarter. The data and methodology are subject to change as CCR and QFA data are subject to change. The analysis will be repeated each quarter to ensure the most timely data is included.

Data quality checks are carried out by comparing CCR data with other Central Bank of Ireland Official Statistics data sets such as credit and banking statistics, including Balance Sheet Items Statistics (BSI).

Definitions

Quarterly Financial Accounts (QFA):

The Quarterly Financial Accounts (QFA) present a complete and consistent set of quarterly financial data for all sectors of the Irish economy. They provide comprehensive information on the financial activities and balance sheet of households, non-financial corporations, financial corporations, government and the rest of the world, forming an integral part of Ireland’s system of national accounts.

Central Credit Register (CCR): A database of loans of €500 or more borrowed by a person living in the Irish State at the time of applying for the loan, or borrowed via a loan agreement/application, which is governed by Irish law. The CCR was set up in 2013 by the Central Bank of Ireland under the Credit Reporting Act 2013 (as amended). Lenders submit information on existing loans and loan applications to the CCR.

Balance Sheet Items (BSI): BSI statistics collects detailed information on balance sheet of the monetary financial institutions (MFI) sector. BSI includes data on lending of deposit taking corporations, i.e. credit institutions and credit unions resident in Ireland, by counterpart sector, including the household sector according to the QFA definition. It breaks down the loans granted to households by purpose of the loan into credit for consumption, lending for house purchase and other loans.

Individual Household: The CCR collects information on individual households who have made a credit application, have made a credit agreement or area guarantor. Individual households may also borrow for business purposes without being considered a company but allocated to the household sector to align with the definition of households in QFA.

Lender: The CCR collects data from Credit Information Providers (Lenders). Lenders are usually broken down into banks and non-banks. The latter comprises of OFIs and government within the release.

Bank: Banks in this dataset refers to deposit taking corporations (ESA 2010 S122) resident in Ireland, including Credit Institutions and Credit Unions. The shares of loans accounted for by mortgages and other loans within this frontier statistics release are consistent with the equivalent BSI shares for this subsector of MFIs.

OFI: Other financial institutions (OFI) refers to ESA 2010 sectors S125, S126 and S127. This includes entities such as financial vehicle corporations engaged in securitisation transactions (FVCs), security and derivative dealers, financial corporations engaged in lending, specialised financial corporations, as well as captive financial institutions. The share of OFI loans accounted for by mortgages and other loans are approximated by using the share of loans by ‘non-banks’ to households by purpose within the CCR data.

Government: The government sector refers to ESA 2010 sector S13. This includes lending undertaken by any entity identified as being state controlled and loans of local authorities, as well as other state bodies and agencies.

Mortgage Loans: this is an aggregate of home loans and buy-to-let loans within the release.

Buy-to-Let Loans: Buy-to-let loans are loans taken to buy a property intended to rent out rather than to live in.

Home Loans: A home loan mortgage is a loan given by an entity for the purchase of a residence. To include direct comparability between BSI (Loans to Irish Households Table A.5.1), and CCR source data, the home loan grouping is used for BSI by combining principal dwelling loans and holiday home loans from Credit and Banking Statistics (Table A.18.1).

Other Loans to Households: Loans taken by households for purpose other than for home loans and buy-to-let.


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