Spanish mortgages remain at all-time low as European Central Bank keeps interest rates at 0.25 per cent
Monday, March 10, 2014 @ 11:28 PM
THE European Central Bank (BCE) has decided to leave interest rates at 0.25 per cent – bad news for savers but a great relief for anyone with loans, mortgages or credit card balances.
Spanish mortgages have already gone down slightly this year with the Euribor dropping to 0.54 per cent, and the BCE says it has no intention of increasing rates of interest in the near future in a bid to increase the flow of credit in the Eurozone and help the collective economy recover.
Inflation in the Eurozone remained at 0.8 per cent in February, despite economists' predictions that it would fall, but their forecasts of 1.1 per cent inflation for this year and 1.3 per cent for next appear to be slightly too optimistic at present, according to current figures.
The BCE wants to bring inflation up to around 1.3 per cent, but to keep it below two per cent.
Whilst mortgage holders in Spain enjoyed a very slight decrease at the beginning of this year, expats in the country who still own property in the UK will see their home loan amounts unchanged and savers can expect the same return this year, since the Bank of England plans to maintain interest rates at the historic low of 0.5 per cent, which they have remained at consistently since the recession in Europe began to bite in March 2009.
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