Financial corporations, balance sheet, April 2010

Norwegian banks’ loans from other banks; the interbank loans, increased by 8.2 per cent from NOK 770.8 billion in June 2009 to NOK 834.2 billion by end April 2010. Compared to the balance sheet total, the share of interbank loans has increased by 1.9 percentage points to 22.5 per cent in the same period. The share of interbank loans to balance sheet total was 0.6 per cent lower in April 2010 than November 2008, when the share reached its highest level ever. From November 2008 to April 2010, the interbank loans fell by 3.5 per cent in real terms. However, in spite of the increase from June last year, the interbank loans are still at a lower level than in November 2008. Interbank loans are often short term and are also sensitive to changes in liquidity demand between banks. The interest rate of interbank loans between Norwegian banks, expressed by the 3 months NIBOR interest rate, has risen by 0.48¹ percentage points to 2.48¹ per cent from June 2009 to April 2010, whereas this rate was 4.09¹ per cent at the end of 2008.

Interbank loans from foreign banks increase

Norwegian banks mainly obtain their interbank loans from foreign banks. These loans increased by 10.8 per cent from NOK 705.1 billion in June 2009 to NOK 781.1 billion by the end of April this year. The share of interbank loans compared to balance sheet total increased from 18.9 per cent to 21.1 per cent in the same period.

Interbank loans among Norwegian banks are still moderate; the share of such loans to the balance sheet total has remained between 1.1 and 2 per cent for a long time. In real figures, the interbank loans between Norwegian banks are only NOK 53 billion at the end of April 2010.

The shares of deposits and bond debt drop while the equity capital increases

The increase in the interbank loans’ significance is also illustrated by changes in relative shares of deposits, bond debt and equity capital. The shares of deposits from households and from non-financial enterprises respectively compared to the balance sheet total have dropped slightly from 21.4 to 21.2 per cent and from 13.6 to 13.3 per cent from June 2009 to end April 2010. In the same period, the bond debt share of the balance sheet total decreased from 19.5 to 18.6 per cent, while the equity capital ratio rose moderately from 4.6 to 5.1 per cent.