Published Online: May 30, 2014
Page range: 21 - 35
Received: Sep 13, 2013
Accepted: Sep 27, 2013
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jcbtp-2014-0009
Keywords
© Central Bank of Montenegro
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Lending interest rates (IR) in the Serbian market are generally viewed as high. In accordance with the official NBS (National bank of Serbia) data for 2010: lending (IR) was 10.4% p.a., deposit IR was 4.2% p.a., and spread was 6.3% p.a. At the same time, IR on cross-border loans was 3.7% p.a. It means that the use of cross-border loans was a better solution for companies which were in position to take them. The indicator of IR spread in Serbia got worse and came down to 106th position (it used to be ranked 90th in 2009; WEF). If we analyse the structure of IR spread, we can notice that there is room for decreasing the level of active IR in the area of country risk premium and funding spread. Pearson Correlation shows that IR has strong relation with return on assets and volume of collected deposits i.e. profit margin per product.