Household Finance and Consumption Survey in Malta: Main results from the Fourth Wave

This article summarizes the main findings from the fourth wave of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) for Malta. The HFCS is part of a co-ordinated research project led by the European Central Bank and involves national central banks of all euro area countries and selected non-euro area EU member states. The results presented are obtained from micro-data collected for reference year 2020 from households residing in Malta and compared with the previous three waves. The HFCS provides household-level data on assets, liabilities, wealth and income. As such, it plays an important role in analysing the economic behaviour of Maltese households and contributes to a better understanding of the developments underlying macro statistics. The results also provide a glimpse of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on household balance sheets and finances.