Serbian companies accelerated borrowing in 2026, with corporate loans rising 11.6% year on year in July as investment financing expanded faster than working-capital lending.
Investment loans increased 16.5%, while loans for liquidity and working capital rose 11.0%, according to National Bank of Serbia data.
The composition provides an important signal for the business cycle.
Rapid credit growth driven predominantly by short-term liquidity borrowing can point to pressure on corporate cash flows. Faster growth in investment loans, by contrast, indicates that part of the new borrowing is being directed towards equipment, capacity expansion and longer-term projects.
Financing conditions have also improved from the peaks reached during the monetary tightening cycle.
Interest rates on newly approved corporate dinar loans averaged 7.4% in July, while rates on euro and euro-indexed corporate lending were 5.2%.
The difference helps explain why euro-linked financing remains attractive for Serbian companies with euro revenues or other natural currency hedges.
But the expansion of investment borrowing is occurring while the NBS benchmark rate remains at 5.75%, suggesting companies have resumed capital expenditure without waiting for a much more aggressive monetary easing cycle.
That fits with broader investment indicators.
Serbia remains in a large infrastructure and construction cycle, while manufacturing companies are expanding production capacity and export-oriented investment continues.
The key question for banks is whether current corporate credit growth translates into productive capacity capable of generating sufficient cash flow once projects enter operation.
So far, asset-quality indicators remain strong. The banking system’s overall non-performing loan ratio was just 1.98% in July, although that figure covers both corporate and household lending.
For Serbian companies, borrowing conditions are materially easier than during the peak of the rate cycle but are not exceptionally cheap.
That means projects still need to absorb euro financing costs of around 5% before margins, fees and project-specific risk premiums are considered.
The 16.5% rise in investment lending nevertheless suggests Serbia’s investment cycle is increasingly being supported not only by government capital spending and FDI but also by domestic bank balance sheets.
That broadening of financing sources could become increasingly important as companies fund automation, energy projects, industrial upgrades and new export capacity.
