In the first nine months of 2018, also following a considerable number of disposals, the stock of non-performing loans (NPLs) decreased from € billion to € billion gross of loan loss provisions, and from € billion to € billion net of them.
The NPL ratio declined from 6.1 to 4.8 per cent in net terms; the coverage ratio rose by almost 4 percentage points, to 54 per cent. 6  For the significant groups, the reduction in net NPLs, amounting to 4.5 per cent of total lending at the end of September 2018, is consistent with the plans that banks agreed with the supervisory authorities.