With today's changes, the Euribor rates remained very close in value, but the three-month rate, which fell to 3.772%, remained above the six-month rate (3.756%) and the 12-month rate (3.715%). The six-month Euribor rate, which became the most widely used in Portugal for variable-rate housing loans and which was above 4% between 14 September and 1 December, rose today to 3.756%, up 0.001 points, after rising on 18 October to 4.143%, a maximum since November 2008. Data from the Banco de Portugal (BdP) for March indicate that the six-month Euribor is the most widely used, representing 36.6% of the 'stock' of loans for permanent own housing with variable rates. The same data indicate that the 12 and three-month Euribor represented 34.3% and 24.9%, respectively. Over a period of 12 months, the Euribor rate, which was above 4% between 16 June and 29 November, fell today to 3.715%, down 0.007 points from the previous session, against the maximum since November 2008, of 4.228%, recorded on 29 September. In the same vein, the three-month Euribor fell, being fixed at 3.772%, down 0.010 points and a new minimum since 1 September 2023, after rising on 19 October to 4.002%, a maximum since November 2008. The average Euribor in May fell at three, six and 12 months, but more sharply than in April and in the shorter terms. The average Euribor in May fell 0.073 points to 3.813% at three months (against 3.886% in April), 0.052 points to 3.787% at six months (against 3.839%) and 0.021 points to 3.681% at 12 months (against 3.702%). In the meantime, the market is awaiting the ECB's monetary policy meeting on Thursday, at which the institution is expected to cut interest rates by 25 basis points, the first cut since March 2016. This decline, if it materialises, should lead to a moderate decline in Euribor rates and thus reduce housing loan repayments. Analysts expect Euribor rates to reach around 3% by the end of the year. At the last monetary policy meeting, on 11 April, the ECB kept key interest rates at their highest level since 2001 for the fifth consecutive time, after making 10 increases since 21 July 2022. Euribor rates started to rise more significantly from 4 February 2022, after the ECB admitted that it could raise key interest rates due to rising inflation in the eurozone and the trend was reinforced with the start of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia on 24 February 2022. The three, six and 12-month Euribor rates recorded all-time lows of -0.605% on 14 December 2021, -0.554% and -0.518% on 20 December 2021, respectively. Euribor rates are set by the average of the rates at which a group of 19 eurozone banks are willing to lend money to each other on the interbank market. Read Also: Euribor falls to new low at 3 months and rises at 6 and 12 months (Portuguese version)