APS Bank CEO Marcel Cassar hailed local homeowners for being “diligent” when it comes to monthly loan repayments. In comments to WhosWho.mt, the banking stalwart remarked:

“Maltese homeowners are generally diligent and will make sacrifices to honour their bank obligations.”

He was asked to comment after remarks he made at the third edition of advisory firm Grant Thornton and real estate agency Dhalia’s landmark report on the local property sector, where he told the audience that such diligence by local homeowners was a good quality held by the Maltese.

On the same topic, BOV CEO Kenneth Farrugia and Chairman Gordon Cordina expressed a similar sentiment, when in March of this year they had said “cultural and legal factors suggest Maltese households tend to consider defaulting on their home loan as the last resort.”

In his comments to WhosWho.mt, Mr Cassar further explained that at APS, its “default rate in home loans is historically well below one per cent.”

This figure can be contrasted to the 3.9 per cent default rate forecasted by EY for the year 2023 across Europe.

Mr Cassar told this newsroom that APS Bank saw requests for moratoria on home loans spiking in March 2020 with the onset of the pandemic, then reaching a peak at the start of the fourth quarter of that year. “About €140 million of retail (mainly home) loans,” he recalled, “were under moratoria at one point.”

Things changed, Mr Cassar said, as soon as things started stabilising and economic activity restarted. “With the Government sustaining its relief measures,” Mr Cassar explained, “we saw our mortgage borrowers coming back to resume their repayments and slowly stopping their moratoria. By summer 2021 practically all our retail (home loan) moratoria had stopped and were being honoured punctually. “