HELSINKI: Households’ financial assets grew by EUR 7.7 billion during the last quarter of 2015 amounting to EUR 275.1 billion. In turn, households’ debts increased by EUR 0.7 billion to EUR 147.4 billion, according to Statistics Finland’s data. As a result of the changes, households’ net financial assets increased by EUR 7.0 billion to EUR 127.7 billion. Net financial assets refer to the difference between financial assets and liabilities.
During the fourth quarter of 2015, households increased their net investments in financial assets by EUR 2.1 billion as per the data derived from the financial accounts statistics. Households’ investments increased particularly in deposits that grew by EUR one billion. Investments in quoted shares, in turn, decreased by around EUR 0.3 billion.
Even though households’ net investments in financial assets increased, holding gains, in particular, helped raise the total level of financial assets. As stock market prices rose, the holding gains from quoted shares and mutual fund shares amounted to EUR 4.3 billion. Households’ loan debts grew by EUR 1.0 billion during the fourth quarter amounting to EUR 137.7 billion, which boosted households’ indebtedness by 0.4 percentage points from the previous quarter to 124.9 per cent.
Non-financial corporations’ debt financing went down by EUR 1.5 billion to EUR 217.6 billion. Non-financial corporations’ financing in the form of debt securities decreased by EUR 1.9 billion to EUR 27.9 billion while non-financial corporations’ loan debts grew by EUR 0.4 billion to EUR 189.7 billion, according to the data.
The growth in non-financial corporations’ deposits that continued for a few years boosted their level to EUR 43.4 billion. From the second quarter of 2014, non-financial corporations’ deposits grew by 74 per cent.
