Corporate lending trends in Serbia increasingly reveal a dual-speed economy emerging beneath the surface of relatively stable macroeconomic indicators. While total business lending continues growing at solid rates, the structure of borrowing shows that Serbian companies are becoming more cautious, more liquidity-focused and increasingly dependent on bank financing to navigate a more volatile regional and European economic environment.
The latest National Bank of Serbia data shows that corporate lending continued expanding through 2025 and into early 2026, supported by lower borrowing costs, eased lending standards and still-solid banking-sector liquidity. Corporate loans rose around 7–8% year-on-year, while total domestic lending to the non-monetary sector maintained double-digit growth rates.
Yet the composition of that growth is becoming more important than the headline numbers themselves.
The strongest expansion has come from liquidity and working capital loans, rather than purely long-term expansion financing. According to NBS lending reports, working-capital financing represented the dominant driver of new corporate borrowing during both Q1 and Q2 2025, materially outpacing export financing and several productive investment categories.
That trend reflects the broader structural pressures now affecting Serbian industry.
Many companies continue facing elevated operating costs linked to energy, imported raw materials, wage growth and logistics expenses. At the same time, European industrial demand — especially from Germany and the automotive supply chain — remains softer than during the post-pandemic recovery period. Serbian companies are therefore borrowing not only to expand, but increasingly to stabilize cash flow, finance inventories and maintain operational flexibility.
The data also reveals a widening divergence between sectors.
Trade companies remain among the largest borrowers, followed by manufacturing, construction and real estate businesses. These sectors continue absorbing most banking liquidity because they sit directly at the center of Serbia’s domestic consumption cycle and infrastructure expansion model.
Energy-related borrowing also remains strategically important.
Earlier 2025 lending data showed strong demand from energy-sector companies, reflecting the broader transformation underway across Serbia’s electricity, renewable energy and industrial infrastructure sectors. Renewable energy projects, grid investments, industrial energy-efficiency upgrades and balancing infrastructure increasingly require substantial bank financing, particularly as Serbia moves deeper into the CBAM-era industrial transition.
One of the most important structural developments is the continuing increase in dinar lending.
The National Bank of Serbia has been actively encouraging dinarization through regulatory measures and capital adequacy incentives. As a result, dinar corporate lending continued rising, while FX-indexed borrowing slowed or declined in several periods.
This is strategically important for financial stability.
For years, Serbia’s banking system operated with high euroization levels, leaving companies exposed to exchange-rate risks and imported monetary conditions tied to EURIBOR movements. The gradual expansion of dinar lending reduces systemic currency exposure and gives the National Bank greater control over domestic monetary transmission mechanisms.
Still, euro-linked financing continues dominating the corporate sector overall. Roughly 79% of FX-indexed corporate loans remain linked to EURIBOR benchmarks. That means Serbian corporates remain indirectly exposed to broader European interest-rate conditions even while the domestic monetary environment stabilizes.
Borrowing costs themselves have improved materially compared with the peak tightening cycle.
Average interest rates on dinar corporate loans declined toward approximately 6.5–6.7%, while euro-denominated corporate lending costs moved closer to 5% during 2025. Lower ECB rates and earlier NBS monetary easing gradually filtered into corporate financing conditions, helping sustain loan demand.
However, financing remains substantially more expensive than during the pre-2022 ultra-cheap liquidity era.
That shift is particularly important for capital-intensive sectors such as renewable energy, heavy industry, logistics infrastructure and manufacturing expansion. Projects that previously relied on near-zero European interest rates must now operate under structurally higher financing assumptions.
The structure of enterprise borrowing also reveals important changes inside Serbia’s corporate landscape.
Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises still account for around 60% of total corporate lending exposure, though large enterprises increasingly dominate incremental borrowing growth.
This reflects growing concentration of investment activity among larger industrial groups, infrastructure developers and companies with stronger collateral positions. In a more uncertain macroeconomic environment, banks increasingly favor borrowers with stable cash flow visibility, export exposure or strategic-sector positioning.
At the same time, the banking system itself remains exceptionally stable by regional standards.
Non-performing loans in the corporate sector fell toward historic lows near 1.6–2.3%, while capital adequacy ratios remain above 21%, far exceeding regulatory minimums.
This is one of the most important macroeconomic anchors supporting Serbia’s broader investment environment.
Unlike previous regional credit cycles driven by aggressive leverage and deteriorating asset quality, the current expansion remains relatively conservative. Banks continue operating with strong liquidity buffers and robust capital coverage, allowing them to continue financing both corporate and infrastructure sectors despite external volatility.
Still, the future direction of corporate lending will increasingly depend on external European conditions rather than purely domestic demand.
Serbia’s corporate sector remains deeply integrated into EU industrial supply chains. If European manufacturing stabilizes and infrastructure investment accelerates under EU decarbonization programs, Serbian industrial borrowing could shift back toward expansion financing and productive investment.
But if European stagnation deepens, working-capital and refinancing loans may continue dominating the lending structure — a sign that companies are prioritizing resilience over aggressive expansion.
This distinction matters enormously for Serbia’s medium-term economic model.
Strong investment-loan growth generally signals industrial modernization, productivity gains and export expansion. Strong working-capital growth, by contrast, often reflects a business sector managing volatility, inflation and weaker external visibility.
At present, Serbia’s lending market contains elements of both realities simultaneously.
