Lending to companies grew by 1.9% year-o-year, while household lending grew by 1.8%. 10 / 15  BIS central bankers' speeches  A significant improvement has also been observed in Eurosystem banks’ composite cost of debt financing, which declined in July to a new historical low, after broadly stabilising in the second quarter of 2016 (see Figure 15).
Also, banks reported a further net easing of credit standards on loans to enterprises in the 11 / 15  BIS central bankers' speeches  second quarter of 2016, suggesting a continued improvement in financing conditions for corporate loans. Across the largest euro area countries, overall terms and conditions eased across all larger countries except for Germany (Table 1).