At the same time, the financial liabilities of households increased by €2.1 billion or 9.5% to €25 billion.
As a result, the financial net worth of the households sector amounted to €64.4 billion, which is an increase of 2.7% from the previous quarter and an increase of 6.7% compared with the fourth quarter of 2022.
The households sector's net worth thus continued the gradual increase that began in the second quarter of 2022 shortly after the end of the period of accelerated growth that lasted from the second quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2021.
The largest contribution to the growth of financial assets in 2023 came from the growth of shares in pension funds and investments in debt securities, mostly bonds and treasury bills of the Ministry of Finance, but deposits remained the most significant item of financial assets of households, the central bank said.
The bank also said that at the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, the financial assets of the Croatian economy stood at €444 billion, up by €9.1 billion in the quarter concerned and by €40.9 billion in the period of one year.
The financial liabilities of the Croatian economy totalled €460 billion, increasing by €9.1 billion from the previous quarter and by €40.1 billion in the period of one year.
In terms of GDP, at the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, the financial assets of the Croatian economy amounted to 580% of the annual GDP, up by 0.2 percentage points in the quarter concerned and down by 8.9 percentage points in the period of one year.
At the same time, the financial liabilities of the Croatian economy decreased by 0.3 percentage points in the quarter concerned and decreased by 12.6 percentage points in the period of one year, accounting for 602% of the annual GDP at the end of the fourth quarter of 2023. These quarterly developments flattened the trend of increase of both assets and liabilities of the Croatian economy in terms of GDP.
The central bank went on to say that at the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, the total financial assets of non-financial corporations stood at €129 billion, growing by 1.0% from the end of the previous quarter. The financial liabilities of non-financial corporations amounted to €185 billion or 0.8% more than at the end of the previous quarter.
In line with such developments, the financial net worth of the non-financial corporations sector slightly decreased to minus €56.3 billion, down by 0.1% from the end of the previous quarter.