Estonia overdue loans stable on month in Oct

TALLINN Nov 24 (Reuters) - The amount of loans overdue for more than 60 days in Estonia's banking system was unchanged on the month at 6.4 percent of the total loan portfolio as of the end of October, the Estonian central bank said on Tuesday.

Estonia's banking system is 95 percent controlled by four Nordic financial groups with Swedbank (SWEDa.ST) owning market leader Swedbank's Estonia unit and SEB (SEBa.ST) SEB Eesti and both dominating the market in a country with just 1.3 million people with almost all loans are issued in euros.

The total loan portfolio at the end of October was 255.2 billion kroons ($24.4 billion), 5.7 percent less than in the same period a year ago, but up from 248.2 billion kroons in the previous month.

The bank said that the total volume of overdue loans increased by 940 million kroons in October with the increase seen in the corporate lending segment.

"The economic situation remains difficult and in the coming months a further deterioration in the quality of the loan portfolio is expected," the bank said.

However, it added that the capitalization of banks is still at a high enough level to cope. ($1=10.44 kroons) (Reporting by David Mardiste, editing by Mike Peacock) ((david.mardiste@thomsonreuters.com, Reuters Messaging: david.mardiste.reuters.com@reuters.net))