More than 55,000 households and 9,200 businesses have loans to Credit Acquiring Companies and 94.5% of the portfolio still concerns non-performing loans, which highlights that most of the problematic loans remain off bank balance sheets.
The Central Bank for the first time released more data and as it notes in the announcement, it upgrades the aggregate data it publishes, with the last reference date being March 31, 2026.
Another important element that emerges from what the Central Bank has released is that Credit Acquiring Companies are developing into one of the largest property owners in Cyprus.
According to the latest data from the Central Bank, at the end of March 2026, 8,014 properties with a total market value of €968 million were owned, which mainly come from collateral recoveries for non-performing loans.
The update of the publication includes a more detailed categorization of loans, with data on an annual basis for the year 2025 and on a quarterly basis from March 2026.
Specifically, the following are published:
The total contractual balance of loans held by the SPDs, broken down by category of borrowers and broken down into subcategories as follows:
Households (loans secured by residential or residential properties), consumer loans, non-financial corporations (loans secured by commercial real estate). It also published the total contractual balance of loans, classified into performing and non-performing loans by category of borrowers, the total net accounting balance of loan portfolios, the total number of borrowers by category and the total number and market value of the real estate held by the SPDs.
Loan balances
Let's see what detailed data there is. The total loan balances by borrower category are €9,667 million at the end of March 2026. (2025: €9,536 million), of which performing loans were €662 million at the end of March. (2025: €693 million), and non-performing loans of €9,005 million. (2025: €8,843 million).
The total outstanding amount of loans belonging to non-financial corporations at the end of March was €9,236 million. (2025: €9,118 million) of which performing loans amounted to €403 million. (2025: €429 million), and non-performing loans €8,833 million. (2025: €8,689 million). In other financial enterprises, the outstanding amount of loans at the end of March was €704 million. (2025: €697 million) of which the performing loans are €15 million. (2025: €6 million) and non-performing loans (2025: €691 million).
According to the data published by the Central Bank, the total performing loans are €1,080 million at the end of March, the total non-performing loans are €18,527 million. (2025: €18,223 million) and the NPL ratio of 94.5% (2025: 94.2%). The total number of borrowers whose loans are in the Credit Acquiring Companies is 64,381 (2025: 61,613).
The number of households at the end of March was 55,044 (2025: 52,497), non-financial enterprises 9,261 (2025: 9,041) and other financial enterprises 76 (2025: 75). In its recent report, the IMF said that in mid-2025, non-bank NPLs amounted to approximately €18.5 billion, or around 51% of GDP, with more than 30% of household and business debt in the hands of credit acquiring companies.
While this has allowed banks to clean up their balance sheets and improve solvency ratios, the real economy carries a large volume of private debt that is not being serviced.
The Central Bank, in the data it provided, states that the net book balance at the end of March is €2,843 (2025: €2,802 million). It clarifies that the net book balance is the value of a loan as reflected in the accounting books (balance sheet) of the Credit Acquiring Companies (SPCs), adjusted to reflect any revisions to estimates for future cash flows and impairments in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standard the net book balance as at 31 March 2026, as opposed to the balance at 31 December 2025, is based on the internal financial accounts (unaudited) as prepared by the SPDs.
