France Large Corporate Loan Rate: Monthly Rate on Corporate Loans Above EUR 1m Since 2003

This dataset tracks the average interest rate on new loans above EUR 1 million granted to French non-financial companies, as published by the Banque de France in its MIR1 statistics, monthly from January 2003 across 280 observations. Loans of this size go overwhelmingly to larger firms, the ones that can also issue bonds and negotiate across banks, which is why this rate behaves like a wholesale price. It is the most volatile leg of French corporate credit: its largest twelve-month move in each direction, a fall of 3.71 points to September 2009 and a rise of 3.01 points to July 2023, both exceed anything recorded on loans up to EUR 1 million.

Dataset: France Large Corporate Loan Rate (2003–2026) · Updated 2026-06-01

Source: Banque de France, Webstat MIR1 · new loans to non-financial corporations, amounts above EUR 1m

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV, Excel and JSON files contain the following columns.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full France large corporate loan rate dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats.

Direct CSV Access – Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-corporate-loan-rate-large.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool. The upstream series is published by the Banque de France through Webstat, in the MIR1 dataset.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

large = pd.read_csv("https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-corporate-loan-rate-large.csv", parse_dates=["date"])
small = pd.read_csv("https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-corporate-loan-rate-small.csv", parse_dates=["date"])

df = small.merge(large, on="date")
df["sme_premium"] = df["small_loan_rate"] - df["large_loan_rate"]
print(df.tail())

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-corporate-loan-rate-large.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

tail(df)
summary(df$large_loan_rate)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL, with no download or API key required.

Methodology

The Banque de France collects new-business interest rates from a sample of French credit institutions in its MIR1 statistics, the national contribution to the harmonised euro-area survey. This line reports the volume-weighted average annual rate on loans above EUR 1 million agreed with non-financial corporations during the reference month, all maturities and all rate-fixation periods combined.

Because the category has no upper bound, a small number of very large transactions can carry a disproportionate weight in the monthly average. That is a feature of a volume-weighted statistic on an unbounded size class, and part of why this series is noisier than its small-loan counterpart.

The Eco3min pipeline pulls the series through DBnomics, which mirrors Banque de France Webstat, and writes the CSV, Excel and JSON files, rebuilding the full history on each run.

Data Quality & Provider Notes

An unbounded size class makes the average lumpy. One syndicated facility of several hundred million euros can move the monthly figure on its own. Single-month swings on this series carry less information than the same swing on the small-loan rate, and quarterly averages are the safer reading.

Bank loans are only part of large-firm funding. The companies borrowing in this size class also issue bonds and commercial paper. When market issuance is cheap they use it, which changes the composition of what remains in the bank channel and therefore the rate recorded here, without any change in their true cost of capital.

A rate on new business, not on the outstanding book. Firms holding facilities agreed in earlier years still pay their original terms. This series describes the price of new credit, not the average cost of debt carried.

Latency and revisions. MIR1 publishes with roughly a two-month lag. The pipeline rebuilds the whole file on each run, so revisions replace history rather than accumulating beside it.

Licence. Banque de France Webstat data is published under the Licence Ouverte 2.0 (Etalab), which permits reuse including commercial reuse, subject to attribution of the source.

Historical Regimes

2003–2008 – The pre-crisis cycle. Annual averages move from 3.08% down to 2.83% in 2004, then climb to 5.01% in 2008, with the all-time high of 5.62% in September 2008. Large borrowers enjoyed cheaper credit than small ones throughout, though the gap was narrow by 2007 at about 0.2 points.

2009–2010 – The sharpest repricing down. The annual average halves to 2.25% in 2009 and 2.05% in 2010. The twelve-month decline of 3.71 points to September 2009 is the largest single move in the file, in either direction and for either size class.

2011–2019 – The long compression. After a brief back-up to 2.74% in 2011 during the euro-area sovereign crisis, annual averages fall for eight consecutive years, from 2.27% to 1.39%.

2020–2021 – The floor. The series reaches its all-time low of 0.86% in May 2020, with annual averages of 1.16% and 1.35%. Notably, the small-loan rate went lower still that month, at 0.62%.

2022–2024 – Repricing, and the inversion. The largest twelve-month rise in the file, 3.01 points, lands in July 2023. Annual averages of 4.30% and 4.55% in 2023 and 2024 sit above the small-loan rate in both years, an inversion of the usual ordering.

2025–2026 – Easing back below. Averages of 3.53% and 3.44% restore the normal ordering, with April 2026 at 3.48% against 3.76% on small loans. The current reading sits at the 77th percentile of its own history, higher in relative terms than the small-loan rate is in its.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

A large-loan rate is read against its small-loan counterpart, the premium between them, and the market conditions it tracks.

Macroeconomic Dataset Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min macro-financial data repository.

Explore the Eco3min Dataset Hub

Sources

• Banque de France – Webstat, MIR1 statistics, new loans to non-financial corporations above EUR 1 million, series M.FR.B.A20.A.R.1.2240U6.EUR.N
• Licence Ouverte 2.0 (Etalab), reuse permitted with attribution to the source
• Eco3min Research – structured dataset compilation

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). France Large Corporate Loan Rate, Monthly Data (2003–2026).<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/france-large-corporate-loan-rate-dataset/