Toolkit for stimulating corporate lending

Following the 2009 recession, a turnaround in corporate lending has not occurred in Hungary. Therefore, the risk of the phenomenon known in the literature as a creditless recovery has risen significantly. Based on empirical analyses, a creditless recovery leads to a slower and protracted economic recovery. Moreover, the escalating sovereign debt crisis in the peripheral euro area and banking regulatory responses in the EU may lead to more pronounced credit supply constraints by European banks, which could negatively affect the subsidiaries in the CEE region. The MNB staff has written numerous internal reports on the reasons behind the subdued lending and policy recommendations for reversing this trend. In this paper, we summarize the findings of this background research and review the state’s possible intervention alternatives to boosting corporate lending on both the supply and demand side. We think that the most effective way of intervention is that the public sector assumes partial credit risk from the banking sector, since a contraction in corporate lending can be attributed to credit supply constraints stemming from strong risk aversion by banks, making interest rates cuts ineffective in stimulating demand for loans. At the same time, it is important to note that state interventions involve substantial fiscal costs; simple, cost-free solutions do not exist among the options. Partial credit risk assumption is not an exemption either, as it translates into government expenditures quickly due to loan losses.