BIS Review 140/2010  1  Allow me to elaborate a little bit more on this point. Loan developments in the euro area can be explained by their main determinants, such as house prices, various interest rates and real income.
In line with this, we saw that the annual growth rate of loans to households – after some months in negative territory – has turned positive towards the end of 2009 and since then has continued to increase steadily [ last observation: 2.9% in August 2010]. This positive annual growth of loans to households reflects mainly developments in lending for house purchase.