“Weekly Focus”, the periodic online report on the issues of the economic and credit situation of the Research Service of BNL – BNP Paribas Group, found that numerous indicators on the economic and financial situation of households show persistent difficulties. Real incomes in the euro area in 2013 they should have registered a new decline, the fourth in a row. Consumption, savings and investments have been adapted to the new income levels.
As for liabilities, they have remained unchanged since 2011 at around 6.800 billion euros and in Ireland, Spain and Portugal household debt has decreased significantly compared to the years that preceded the crisis. In the third quarter of 2013, the increase in financial assets mainly reflected the positive trend of the markets, but the flow of new savings to be invested in the various financial assets decreased: from 610 billion euros in 2007 it fell to 340 billion in 2013 .
Deposits are confirmed as the main financial activity of households but the growth rate is slowing down in the main economies of the euro area. Proof of the importance of stable funding sources such as deposits occurred during the phase of severe turbulence in the sovereign bond market, when the funding gap, i.e. the coverage of loans through funding from resident customers, became a fundamental parameter to measure the stability of the different national financial systems.
The data available up to the third quarter of last year point to a decline in the real income of households in the euro area for 2013, as in the previous three years. The protracted contraction or the weak trend in incomes has prompted households to use domestic "spend review" measures which have led to a decrease in consumption in line with that of incomes.
