Prime Yield has released the 2026 edition of its flagship report, “Keep an Eye on the NPL & REO Markets”, offering fresh insights into non-performing loan (NPL) markets across Southern Europe and Brazil.

This year’s edition highlights a realignment in market performance across the regions analyzed. In Southern Europe, Portugal, Spain, and Greece all recorded reductions in their NPL stock – both on a quarterly and year-on-year basis -, contrasting with a broader European trend, where NPL volumes rose again in Q3 2025.

NPL ratios also improved across these three countries. However, market dynamics differ significantly. Spain and Portugal experienced a slowdown in transaction activity compared to 2024, reflecting more mature markets and reduced primary activity. In contrast, Greece is expected to have seen a notable acceleration in transactions in 2025, driven by the completion of two of the largest deals under the HAPS state securitization program.

In Latin America, the scenario diverges. Brazil saw a sharp increase in default levels in 2025, impacting both the financial system and consumer credit. As a result, NPL portfolio sales expanded, supported by higher volumes of distressed assets and a broader range of sellers, even within the context of a new regulatory framework for banking provisioning.

Ask us for a copy of the full 2026 report to explore a comprehensive analysis of the NPL stock evolution, ratios, and transactions trends across all covered markets.

Prime Yield has just released the 2025 edition of ‘Keep an Eye on the NPL&REO Markets’, the annual report that analyses the dynamics of NPL transactions, as well as the KPIs of this sector, in Brazil, Greece, Portugal and Spain.

Among the main conclusions of the new edition is the fact that the European markets covered by Prime Yield in terms of NPL dynamics recorded different performances in 2024, both in terms of transactions and the actual reduction of this type of credit in their financial system.

On the one hand, Portugal and Spain, where the stock of non-performing loans decreased, contrary to the dominant trend in Europe. In these two countries, the sale of distressed debt portfolios exhibited improved dynamics in 2024, fuelled by secondary market activity and corporate transactions.

Greece, on the other hand, saw its NPL stock grow for the first time in years, despite remaining at low levels and still sharply below the critical years of what was once Europe’s most worrying market. Despite the trend recorded in the defaulted credit pile stock, the sale of such portfolios slowed down compared to previous years. This is not surprising, given the country’s strong deleveraging process and the consolidation of HAPS, which will have entered its final phase after five years in force.

In Latin America, Brazil also saw an increase in NPL stock, albeit at a much slower pace than in the last two years, although this did not translate into a substantial increase of transactions. In any case, activity is robust and more diversified, but reflecting the conditions of a market that has yet to scale up as it is at a very different stage of maturity from Southern Europe.

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Speaking to Open Hub News EU, Francisco Virgolino, Managing Director of Prime Yield, explains that the secondary market is going to be one of the main drivers of NPL transactions in Iberia over 2025.

The challenges faced by this sector in both Southern Europe and Brazil set the tone for this talk, in which Francisco also discusses how Prime Yield addresses this market through its consultancy and valuation services specializing in NPL & REO.

Read the full article here.

Prime Yield has just announced its latest conclusions regarding the performance of the NPL&REO market in the several Southern European countries in which it operates, as well as in Brazil, where it is also present.

The company has now published the 2024 edition of its “Keep an Eye on the NPL&REO Markets” study, an annual research on the NPL sales markets in Brazil, Greece, Portugal and Spain, countries where the company provides specialised services to this sector. The study aims to provide an informed view of these four markets, analyzing NPL stocks and ratios, as well as forecasting transaction activity in 2023 and prospects for its evolution in 2024.

One of the main conclusions is that the European markets analysed by Prime Yield will perform differently in 2023. On the one hand, Spain, where NPL sales activity will have increased year-on-year, with the return of large-scale portfolio trading. On the other hand, Portugal and Greece, with a slowdown in activity reflecting the strong deleveraging progress of recent years. In Portugal, however, this slowdown meant that activity was close to an all-time low, while in Greece transaction levels remain robust. In Latin America, Brazil is also showing a slowdown in NPL sales activity, but this is mainly due to the intensification of loan renegotiation processes, which has put some transactions on hold.

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Num contexto macroeconómico desafiante, marcado pela subida das taxas de juro, da inflação em alta e da continuada incerteza em torno da guerra travada pela Rússia na Ucrânia, a venda de carteiras de crédito malparado (Non-Performing Loans, NPL, na sigla inglesa) em Portugal não deverá ir além dos €1.700 milhões de volume transacionado em 2023, conclui a Prime Yield na última edição do seu relatório anual “Keep an Eye on the NPL & REO Markets – Portugal, Spain, Greece & Brazil”.

Este é um volume idêntico ao registado em 2022, ano em que a atividade de venda de carteiras de NPL em Portugal registou uma quebra de 44%, não dando continuidade à tendência de recuperação pós-pandemia de 2021 e pressionando este mercado em níveis mínimos dos últimos anos. Só em 2020, num contexto de paralisação dos negócios devido à pandemia, a atividade de venda de NPL foi inferior, ficando então em €1.000 milhões. Recorde-se que o pico de transações de malparado em Portugal registou-se em 2019, quando ascendeu a cerca de €8.000 milhões, e que após a quebra de 2020 para os já referidos €1.000 milhões, o ano 2021 assinalou uma recuperação para os níveis de 2017 e 2018, com cerca de €3.000 milhões transacionados, numa tendência que 2022 não confirmou.

No 3º trimestre de 2022, o sistema financeiro nacional registava €7.200 milhões em crédito malparado, montante que corresponde a 3,1% do volume total de crédito concedido no país (rácio de NPL). Pese embora ambos os indicadores continuarem a exibir uma trajetória de redução ao longo do último ano, Portugal mantém o segundo rácio de NPL mais elevado da Europa do Sul, apenas superado pela Grécia, onde o peso do malparado no crédito total foi de 4,9%. Além disso, não obstante os progressos dos últimos anos, o rácio de NPL português continua a quase duplicar a média europeia, que posicionou este indicador em 1,8% no 3º trimestre de 2022.

Ainda assim, entre o 3º trimestre de 2021 e 3º trimestre de 2022, o stock de NPL em Portugal reduziu 14%, tendo saído €1.200 milhões de incumprimento do sistema financeiro, de €8.400 milhões (3º trimestre 2021) para €7.200 milhões (3ºtrimestre 2022).

Considerando os processos de venda de NPL em curso no 1º trimestre de 2023, identifica-se um volume potencial de transações próximo dos €1.500 milhões, o qual, contudo, deverá aumentar progressivamente nos próximos meses, à medida que forem sendo lançados no mercado novos mandatos, esperando-se que o ano feche com um nível de atividade idêntico a 2022, em torno dos €1.700 milhões. Nesta fase, a Caixa Geral de Depósitos destaca-se como a entidade mais ativa, liderando dois processos de venda em curso: o projeto Saturno, avaliado em €600 milhões, e uma outra carteira no valor de €500 milhões, incluindo ativos com e sem colaterais.

Para Espanha, a Prime Yield antecipa a venda de portfólios de NPL no valor de €10.000 milhões em 2023, numa quebra de 9% face aos resultados de 2022 e longe dos níveis prévios de um mercado que já transacionou acima dos €20.000 milhões anuais (2019). Na Grécia, as estimativas são para vendas na ordem dos €15.000-€20.000 milhões, em linha com 2022, e igualmente a cerca de metade do pico de atividade neste mercado, que se posicionou entre os €40.000-€45.000 milhões (2021).

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Following a very challenging year due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, transaction NPL&REO portfolios in the markets monitored by Prime Yield fell dramatically throughout 2020. However, investors remain very interested in these asset types and 2021 should be a very busy year, with NPL&REO sales expected to resume previous levels, with fairly robust pipelines (deals in progress, planned and identified) across all countries.

The 2021 edition of the research “Keep an Eye on the NPL&REO Markets” provides an informed overview on this market in Portugal, Spain and Greece in Europe, but also on the Brazilian market in Latin America. The NPL stock and ratio, as well as estimates for transactional activity in 2021 are highlighted in the new edition of the research. An insight into the economy and real estate market in each of the four countries is also featured in the report.

The new edition of the study was released, firsthand, on the occasion of the most important European NPL conference – NPL Europe Conference – organized by Smith Novak on 3 and 4 March, in a virtual format.

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As players all over the world are targeting these distressed assets as interesting investment opportunities, Prime Yield presents a research that provides close and specific insights over the status and deal potential in each one of these markets, aware that they are at different stages and have the potential to generate different opportunities fitting different risk profiles. The report thus aims to provide a useful tool to all players looking to be on top of the game in the competitive NPL market. The 2020 Spring Edition gives an update on the NPL status and deal potential for Portugal, Spain and Greece, as well as for Brazil, also including a look over each country’s Economy and Real Estate market.

This new edition of the research was released, first hand, on the leading European NPL event, the NPL Europe Conference. Organized by Smith Novak and held on March 5th and 6th, this event took place in London. Represented by Nelson Rêgo, the company’s CEO, Prime Yield was one of the speakers in the event.

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