Fewer Philippine banks expect demand for household and business loans to remain steady in the fourth quarter of the year, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

Based on the central bank’s latest 2025 Senior Bank Loan Officers’ Survey (SLOS), only 65 percent of surveyed banks anticipate steady household loan demand in the fourth quarter, down from 75 percent in the previous survey.

Consequently, more banks believe demand will decline in the last quarter at 10 percent, up from 7.5 percent in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, expectations of a demand spike also rose to 25 percent, compared to 17.5 percent previously.

In terms of business loans, slightly fewer banks expect stable demand from October to December at 73.7 percent, down from 75.4 percent in the third quarter.

Fewer banks—at 1.8 percent—also expect business loan demand to ease. This was lower than the 5.3 percent recorded in the third quarter.

Consequently, nearly a quarter of surveyed banks expect demand to increase, up from 19.3 percent previously.

As for bank lending standards, 86 percent of banks said their lending standards would remain unchanged in the current quarter, up from 78.9 percent in the last quarter.

Nearly 11 percent of the surveyed banks said they would likely tighten their standards, while 3.5 percent said they would likely loosen them.

Lending standards refer to the rules banks apply when granting loans—such as interest rates, loan size, collateral, loan conditions, and repayment terms. The BSP recently reduced key interest rates to 4.75 percent due to concerns over infrastructure fund spending.