Monthly review of the usury rate to help access to mortgage

This announcement confirms the track envisaged last week after a meeting between the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Banque de France, bankers and brokers.

The wear rate caps all the costs of a home loan: credit rate charged by the bank, any brokers' commission, borrower insurance. Its method of calculation is today, in a context of rising rates, an obstacle for many buyers, according to players in the real estate sector.

For several months, interest rates have been rising in the wake of the key rates of the European Central Bank and faster than the usury rate.

Raising the wear rate ceiling offers a breath of fresh air to the market: it allows banks to lend more expensively, but also to each other component of the cost of credit to be taken into account without exceeding the legal ceiling. This ultimately allows the acceptance of more credit application files.

The wear rate is currently calculated each quarter by the Banque de France, which averages the rates charged by the banks over the past three months, increased by a third.

If "the application of the usury rate formula led to well-proportioned increases" in 2022, according to the Banque de France, the institution noticed that at the end of the quarter "certain files, pending of the next significant quarterly increase in the attrition rate, are thus postponed to the beginning of the following quarter", creating an imbalance in the distribution of credits.

To smooth out increases in the rate of wear, the calculation will therefore be made every month and no longer every quarter from 1 February until 1 July.

“The wear rates will remain established on the basis of the average of the rates practiced during the three previous months”, specified the Banque de France.

A decree must be published in the coming days to formalize the measure.