The price of mortgage loans continues to go fall, despite moves in recent months by the Czech National Bank to raise key interest rates to 2 percent. Hospodářské noviny reports that the situation on global financial markets is playing an important role, as is the threat of trade wars and the slowing economy worldwide. Even as Czech interest rates come up, yields on German bunds have fallen to -0.2 percent. By contrast, 10-year bonds issued by the Czech government currently fetch yields of around 1.6 percent, a 30 bps fall in just one month. The rapid rate movement is being seen as an opportunity by some. UniCredit Bank, for example, moved quickly in the first quarter of the year to reduce mortgage rates, allowing it to increase the volume of mortgages it provided in Q1 2019 by 80 percent compared to a year before.
