Czech banks received 345,000 loan deferral requests from clients that were hurt by measures taken to slow the spread of coronavirus. In all, the banks were obliged to free up CZK 10bn in liquidity for their clients, under the terms of a law passed to protect borrowers temporarily from their creditors. Even before the law was approved, the banks had already received and approved 230,000 payment deferral requests. Another 80,000 were filed after the law came into effect on April 17 by April 30, after which the pace of the applications slowed considerably. In May, just 35,000 deferral applications were submitted. Two-thirds of the requests were made in connection with consumer loans while another 25 percent concerned mortgage loans.
