What Drives the Distributional Dynamics of Client Interest Rates on Consumer Loans in the Czech Republic? A Bank-level Analysis

We study the bank-level distributional dynamics and factors of client interest rates on consumer loans in the Czech Republic. We take into account that client interest rates can have different fixation periods, focus on the consumer loans category, which exhibits multimodal client interest rate distributions, and employ an alternative measure to the mean interest rate - the mode measure. We show that in recent years, most banks in the Czech Republic have started to provide new consumer loans at unprecedentedly low client interest rates. The bank-level analysis then reveals that reduced market concentration (increased market competition) and to some extent also accommodative monetary policy and changes in the market for housing loans and mortgages have been driving this development. Our results are in line with the international literature but are novel in the Czech context.