Non-performing loans (NPLs) at the four largest banks in Honduras rose last year as the country struggled to cope with the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the destruction wreaked by storms Eta and Iota. The Central American country’s economy shrunk by 9% in 2020, according to The World Bank.
The sharpest NPL rise was at Banco de Occidente Honduras, the fourth-largest bank in the country by assets and Tier 1 capital, which saw its NPL ratio increase to 8.6% in 2020 from 5.6% in 2019, according to The Banker Database. The bank has seen its NPL ratio drop from a high of almost 10% in 2016.
