Frontier Statistics: Mortgage Interest Rate Distributions (December 2024)

Background

Interest rates on Principal-Dwelling Home (PDH) mortgage loans can vary widely between borrowers and lenders. In order to paint a fuller picture of the Irish mortgage interest rate environment than what is provided by official statistics alone, the Central Bank is publishing full PDH mortgage interest rate distributions for loans held by three entity types: banks, lending non-banks, and non-lending non-banks. Lending non-banks are non-bank entities that originate their own mortgage lending, while non-lending non-banks are the non-bank entities that hold residential mortgage loans, but do not originate lending themselves (i.e. they purchase loans from originating institutions).

Key Observations

  • Non-lending non-banks hold a higher concentration of mortgage loans at the low end of the distribution than lending non-banks or banks, but also have the highest median interest rate, at 4.5 per cent.
  • The median interest rate on bank-held mortgages at end-December 2024 was 3.95 per cent.
  • The median interest rate on mortgages held by lending non-banks was 3.5 per cent.

This Frontier Statistics release page is updated with new data periodically. Historical data can be accessed in the data file at the end of this page.

Cumulative Distributions

Table 1: Cumulative Distribution by Institution Type, December 2024
Interest Rate Bucket Bank (%) Lending non-bank (%) Non-lending non-bank (%)
≤ 0.5 1.08 0.29 13.25
≤ 1.0 1.09 0.29 13.49
≤ 1.5 1.09 0.29 14.12
≤ 2.0 1.39 11.41 14.65
≤ 2.5 12.88 28.35 15.08
≤ 3.0 25.60 41.73 17.99
≤ 3.5 37.27 50.08 19.07
≤ 4.0 54.93 69.28 27.48
≤ 4.5 85.36 88.99 51.62
≤ 5.0 98.34 93.99 66.67
≤ 5.5 99.50 96.23 69.37
≤ 6.0 99.80 98.29 72.94
≤ 6.5 99.95 99.78 78.46
≤ 7.0 99.96 99.95 83.92
≤ 7.5 99.97 100.00 86.45
≤ 8.0 99.97 100.00 93.98
≤ 8.5 99.97 100.00 98.64
≤ 9.0 99.97 100.00 99.24
> 9.0 100.00 100.00 100.00

Notes: Table 1 shows the percentage of PDH mortgage loans with interest rates at or below the given rate (also referred to as the cumulative distribution of mortgage interest rates).

Chart 1 (below) compares the cumulative distributions of mortgage interest rates at end-December 2024 for banks and non-banks, which are further split into lending non-banks and non-lending non-banks. Each cumulative distribution shows the proportion of loans held by each entity type, which have interest rates less than or equal to a given rate. Intervals where the curves are steeper are interest rate ranges where loans are more highly concentrated. For instance, loans held by non-lending non-banks are more highly concentrated between 4 per cent and 5 percent than at other interest rate intervals. This range contains 39 per cent of all such mortgages, while the remaining loans are spread more evenly through the distribution. In contrast to non-lending non-banks, lending non-banks and banks hold relatively fewer mortgages at the high and low ends of their respective distributions.

Chart 1: The distribution of mortgage interest rates varies by institution type

Cumulative Distributions by Entity Type, December 2024

Line chart of Cumulative Distributions By Entity Type. Full summary below in notes.
Notes: Chart 1 compares the cumulative distributions of PDH mortgage loans held by banks, lending non-banks, and non-lending non-banks (shows table 1 data graphically). It shows a steep, high concentration of bank and lending non-bank loans between <=1.5% and <=5%, and a slightly shifted high concentration of non-lending non-banks from <=4% to<= 5%.

Chart 2 (below) shows the shift over the previous year of each cumulative distribution. Interest rates on each entity type shifted differently between December 2023 and December 2024. Interest rates on mortgages held by banks and non-lending non-banks generally decreased, while interest rates on mortgages held by lending non-banks increased more. Despite increasing, interest rates on mortgages held by lending non-banks remained lower than those of the other institution types at most points on the distribution.

Chart 2: The Distribution of mortgage interest rates has shifted differently over the past year for each entity type

Change in Mortgage Interest Rate Distributions, December 2023-December 2024

Line chart. Cumulative distributions of Principal-Dwelling Home (PDH) mortgage loan interest rates . Full summary below in notes.
Notes: Chart 2 compares the cumulative distribution of PDH mortgage loans for December 2023 and December 2024 as two lines. There are three of these charts, one for each entity type. For non-lending non-banks, loans were more highly concentrated between 4% and 6% in December 24 than a year prior.

Mortgage Interest Rate Percentiles

Table 2: Mortgage Interest Rate Percentiles, December 2024
Percentile Bank (%) Lending non-bank (%) Non-lending non-bank (%)
10 2.37 2.00 0.00
20 2.80 2.35 3.65
30 3.03 2.55 4.15
40 3.65 2.90 4.35
50 3.95 3.50 4.50
60 4.15 3.80 4.65
70 4.21 4.05 5.65
80 4.43 4.20 6.60
90 4.59 4.55 7.76

Notes: Table 2 presents the interest rate distributions in terms of percentiles, which provides the ability to see the median interest rate on Irish mortgages across all three entity types. As of December 2024, non-lending non-banks have the highest median interest rate on mortgage loans, while lending non-banks have the lowest.

 

Chart 3 (below) shows that at the 20th, 50th, and 80th percentiles, the change in interest rates between December 2023 and December 2024 differed by entity type.  Interest rates on mortgages held by non-lending non-banks decreased at the median, while the median interest rate on mortgages held by lending non-banks increased. Interest rates on bank-held mortgages with higher rates decreased more than lower interest rate loans. Furthermore, in December 2024 non-lending non-banks had mortgages with the highest interest rates across nearly the whole distribution, though these entities also hold a larger proportion of loans at the very low end of the distribution relative to lending non-banks and banks.

In December 2024, the median interest rate on mortgage loans held by non-lending non-banks was still higher than the 80th percentile of interest rates on bank-held loans, despite a sizable decrease in the median rate on loans held by non-lending non-banks.

Chart 3: Non-lending non-banks have the highest mortgage rates throughout the distribution

Change in mortgage interest rates between December 2023 and December 2024

Bar chart showing interest rates on outstanding Principal-Dwelling Home (PDH) mortgage loans. More information in Notes below.
Notes: : Chart 3 shows three sets of bar charts for the 20th, median and 80th percentile interest rates. The x-axis indicates the three entity types, showing a comparison of December 2023 and 2024. The median chart shows an increase in interest rates for banks and lending non-banks in December 2024, and a decrease for non-lending non-banks.

Data

Background

The Mortgage Interest Rate Distributions Frontier Statistics publication presents data on the distribution of Principal-Dwelling Home (PDH) mortgage loans broken down by the type of entity that holds the loans.

Mortgage interest rate distribution figures are compiled using data from the Central Credit Register (CCR), a database containing records of loans and loan applications of over €500 borrowed by Irish residents or governed by Irish law.  The CCR is established by the Central Bank of Ireland under the Credit Reporting Act 2013 as amended. As such, lenders are required to submit information on loans to the CCR.

Coverage and Scope

The lenders included in this publication, and defined in the CCR, are regulated financial service providers (i.e. banks and credit unions). Irish-resident lenders and lenders in the EEA regulated by other agencies are included in the CCR. This publication also includes non-banks—non-regulated Irish-resident companies which are lenders or holders of mortgage loans. Data for all entity types in this publication comes from the CCR.

Data Checks and Revisions

As part of the Frontier Statistics series, the Mortgage Interest Rate Distributions publication will undergo continuous revisions each quarter, and the data and methodology are subject to change. CCR data are subject to change, and therefore analysis will be repeated each quarter to ensure the timeliest data is included.

Data quality checks have been carried out by comparing the data underlying the Mortgage Interest Rate Distributions publication with Central Bank of Ireland Official Statistics data sets, most notably the Mortgage Arrears data set.

Definitions

Bank: Licenced credit institutions as published on our Registers. In this publication, credit unions are considered banks.

Borrower: In this publication, borrowers are defined as the debtors on Principal-Dwelling Home (PDH) mortgage loans.

Central Credit Register (CCR): A database of loans of €500 or more borrowed by a person living in the Irish State at the time of applying for the loan, or borrowed via a loan agreement/application which is governed by Irish law. The CCR was set up in 2013 by the Central Bank of Ireland under the Credit Reporting Act 2013 (as amended). Lenders submit information on existing loans and loan applications to the CCR.

Cumulative distribution: The cumulative distribution of mortgage loans shows the proportion of loans less than or equal to a given interest rate.

Non-bank: Lenders or holders of mortgage loans which are not banks, credit unions, or government-sponsored entities. This category includes retail credit firms and credit servicing firms.

Lending non-bank: Lending non-banks are the subset of non-banks which originate PDH mortgage lending.

Non-lending non-bank: Non-lending non-banks are the subset of non-banks which hold PDH mortgage loans, but do not originate lending themselves.

Interest Rate Data Table 1 | xlsx 10 KB Interest Rate Data Table 2 | xlsx 8 KB

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