Argentina’s financial system demonstrated resilience throughout 2025, maintaining robust capital, provisioning, and liquidity levels while simultaneously experiencing a significant expansion of credit to the private sector, according to recently released data. The shift marks a notable change in financial flows, with lending to businesses and individuals increasing while public sector financing decreased.
Real credit to the private sector rose by 1.2% in the final month of the year, primarily driven by commercial loans. Over the course of 2025, private sector financing in pesos expanded by 27.4% in real terms, with asset-backed loans showing the strongest growth. The housing market also saw increased activity, with nearly 3,000 new mortgage loans issued in December, bringing the total for the year to approximately 43,700 new borrowers. Loans denominated in foreign currency increased by 4% between month-conclude reporting periods – measured in their original currency – accumulating a 73% expansion throughout the year.
This surge in private sector lending is reflected in a rebalancing of the financial system’s asset composition. By December 2025, financing to companies and families accounted for 43.9% of total assets, an increase of 8.6 percentage points year-over-year. Conversely, financing to the public sector fell to 27.8% of total assets, a decrease of 8 percentage points.
The non-performing loan ratio for private sector credit stood at around 5.5% at the end of 2025. Household financing delinquencies were higher, at 9.3% of the portfolio dedicated to this segment, while corporate loan irregularities were lower, at 2.5%. Provisions covered 93% of irregular credit and 5.2% of total credit to the private sector.
Peso-denominated deposits from the private sector grew by 4.6% in real terms in December, largely due to increases in non-interest-bearing current accounts (15.4% monthly real increase) and time deposits (4.3% monthly real increase). Throughout 2025, the total balance of private sector peso deposits increased by 7.7% in real terms, primarily driven by time deposits. Foreign currency deposits held by the private sector grew by 3.5% in December and 17.7% over the entire year, measured in the original currency.
Liquidity indicators showed some shifts in December. The liquidity ratio in national currency, considering only available funds, decreased by 0.9 percentage points to 13.3% (+1.4 percentage points year-over-year), reflecting adjustments to reserve requirements. Including public securities used to meet reserve requirements, the liquidity ratio in pesos stood at 32.9% of deposits, 1.1 percentage points lower than the previous month (-2.9 percentage points year-over-year). Foreign currency liquidity decreased by 3 percentage points to 58.9% in the same period (-13.1 percentage points year-over-year).
The financial system’s capital adequacy ratio (RPC) remained around 28.6% of risk-weighted assets at the end of the year (-2.1 percentage points year-over-year), while excess capital (RPC minus the minimum regulatory requirement) totaled 253% of the regulatory requirement for the aggregate of entities (-32.3 percentage points year-over-year). The aggregate financial system’s leverage ratio – according to Basel Committee guidelines – reached 19.7% in December, well above the minimum regulatory requirement of 3%. A slight reduction in the indicator was observed over the past 12 months, in line with the expansion of the aggregate balance sheet. The aggregate profitability of financial institutions was positive in December, resulting in a cumulative ROA of 1% (ROE of 4.4%) for the year, lower than in 2024.
