The institution said that out of the total €12.39 billion loans, some 4.37% or €542 million had been defaulted on or was otherwise deemed unlikely to be recovered.


This figure, in turn, is up from €510 million at the end of 2013 when that represented 3.98% of the amount of outstanding loans owed to the financial system.


The Bank of Portugal reported that this rise in bad debt derived from mortgage loans with the amount of shorter term credit loans getting default on having slid between 2013 and 2014, down from 11.77% to 10.32%.


Correspondingly, in 2013, mortgage loan defaults totalled 2.27% of the total and loaned for the purpose of properties and that had risen twelve months later to 2.52%.


In terms of companies, Portugal’s central bank said that 14.4%, and up from 11.8% in 2013, of corporate loans had entered into default as of the end of last year and hence some €862 million out of the €12.4 billion loaned to Portuguese companies and firms.


In particular, 23.8% of funding loaned out to construction communities currently failing to get serviced.