Central Bank of the Philippines bank lending survey shows most banks expect unchanged Q4 2025 lending standards with a modest tightening bias

The Central Bank of the Philippines published results of its Q3 2025 Senior Bank Loan Officers’ Survey, indicating that a higher share of respondent banks expect lending standards for both business and household loans to remain unchanged in Q4 2025, although the balance of prospective changes still points to net tightening. Banks also mostly expect loan demand to be steady, with more respondents anticipating increased demand than in the previous quarter. For business loans, 86.0% of surveyed banks expect lending standards to be unchanged in Q4 2025 (78.9% in Q3), while 10.5% expect tightening and 3.5% expect easing, implying net 7.0% tightening. For household loans, 87.5% expect standards to be unchanged (77.5% in Q3), with 10.0% expecting tightening and 2.5% easing, for net 7.5% tightening. The survey defines lending standards as pricing and non-price terms such as interest rates, loan size, collateral, loan conditions and repayment terms. On demand, 73.7% expect business-loan demand to be unchanged, 24.6% to increase and 1.8% to decline, while for household loans 65.0% expect demand to be unchanged, 25.0% to increase and 10.0% to decline. The survey drew responses from 58 banks out of 60 surveyed.