Procesy konwergencji na europejskim rynku kredytów dla gospodarstw domowych
Convergence Processes in the European Household Credit Market

Summary/Abstract: Dynamic growth in the household lending market has in recent years increased this market’s importance and has had an influence on the entire economy. The article compares the development of the credit market for households in Poland with both highly developed European countries and those with a level of socioeconomic development on a par with Poland’s. The hypothesis is that European integration affects the credit market and leads, despite historical and cultural differences, to its gradual real convergence. These trends are particularly pronounced among the new EU members. Rapid development of the credit market for households has been accompanied by changes in this market’s structure – loans are increasingly becoming a source of the long-term financing of household consumption. Analysis based on the aggregated data reveals that the volume of loans per capita depends largely on the wealth of households. Clustering done using Ward’s method made it possible to isolate four groups of countries that are similar in terms of the size of their credit market relative to households (measured in relation to GDP) and its structure (the share of housing loans to total retail loans). The increase in the relative size of the credit market in post-socialist countries, after an initial rapid increase in demand for consumer loans, is made possible only by increasing the share of long-term loans on property.

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