The stock of non-performing loans declined considerably, especially as a result of some major sales, totalling € billion in 2016, € billion in 2017 and € billion in 2018. Driven by pressure from the supervisory authorities, the increase in sales also benefited from banks’ progress in providing detailed information on the characteristics of exposures and from the greater number of NPL recovery specialists.
The coverage ratio reached 52.7 per cent at the end of 2018, 6 percentage points higher than the average figure for the main euro-area banks.