Patience required

Construction package details missing: Standstill with loans

"It's a shame that the details of how this funding will be implemented are still not fixed and known," says Heinrich Schaller, CEO of Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberösterreich.(Bild: RLB OÖ/Hermann Wakolbinger)

Demand for housing loans fell sharply last year - but now the federal government's housing package is set to reverse the trend. However, people still have to be patient because the details are still waiting. "People are waiting too long," says RLB-OÖ General Director Heinrich Schaller and speaks of a "standstill".

"We are expecting a strong increase in private residential construction and therefore also in financing. There is also already an increased interest in consultations for new housing loans, which is mainly due to the federal government's subsidy package, but now people are waiting until the criteria are finally on the table," says Heinrich Schaller.

And that has consequences. "Private lending has more or less come to a complete standstill," explains the CEO of Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberösterreich, who presented the figures for 2023 on Friday.

We are of the opinion that we will pass through the trough of the recession by the middle of the year and can expect growth again in the second half of 2024. We will not experience a massive upward trend, but rather a gradual one.

Heinrich Schaller, Generaldirektor der Raiffeisenlandesbank OÖ

Although the consolidated balance sheet total was down slightly, it amounted to 47.8 billion euros, while the net profit after tax rose to 608.3 million euros - an increase of 269.5 million euros compared to 2022. A "very, very pleasing result", said Schaller, who emphasized the importance of increasing capital strength. "We are therefore much better equipped to deal with possible setbacks, but we also have the opportunity to continue to grow."

Online savings increasingly popular
There was also strong growth in savings volumes, which climbed to 18.7 billion euros in the previous year. "The growth is almost exclusively due to online savings," explains Schaller.

350 branches in Upper Austria
Will the branch network be reduced further due to the increased popularity of online banking and the like? Schaller waves it off: "Raiffeisen will not throw away the advantage of direct contact with our customers, which we have built up over more than 100 years, at the stroke of a pen and give up." The company currently operates 350 branches in Upper Austria. He does not rule out a few mergers: "But Raiffeisen will certainly not disappear from the region."