Unleashed, runaway, out of control… The superlative adjectives to describe the behavior of the interbank market fit faithfully to what the graphs reflect. The 12-month Euribor, which measures the interest on loans between banks at that term, has shot up again this Thursday to 1.851%, 7 basis points (bp) more than Wednesday and almost 100 basis points more than a month ago when its current escalation began. The threat of a big interest rate hike by the European Central Bank (ECB) next week to rein in inflation has fired up lending indicators. The 12-month Euribor index is used as a reference for most mortgage loans in Spain. Its price began on August 1 at 0.94% and ended yesterday at 1.78%, leaving the monthly average -which will be used in this month’s revisions- at 1.249%, the highest since May 2012 The year-on-year jump will make mortgages more expensive by 174 basic points, about 1,000 euros for every 100,000 euros of capital pending amortization. It will be the largest year-over-year increase since September 2000 in the two-decade history of the Euribor as a mortgage benchmark. However, the start of the month at 1.85% heralds a new record for the indicator if it consolidates or extends the current rise rate. According to the forecast published yesterday by the Asufin association, the 12-month Euribor will stand at 2.2% at the end of the year, which means that the annual reviews to determine the cost of the installments will make family loans more expensive by 130 euros per month, and more than 1,500 euros per year. If this trend continues, the association believes it is “possible” that in 2023 a 12-month Euribor of 3% will be reached, which would mean an increase in the cost of mortgages above 2,000 euros for every 100,000 of a 25-year loan. These changes are already transferred to the field of fixed mortgages, with an offer “disappearing in many cases”, since banks are very cautious when granting the change from variable to fixed mortgage, according to Asufin complaint.