The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has released the private sector credit aggregates data for the month of September:
Total credit provided to the private sector by financial intermediaries grew by 0.3 per cent over September 2013 after increasing by 0.3 per cent over August. Over the year to September, total credit rose by 3.3 per cent.
Housing credit increased by 0.4 per cent over September following an increase of 0.4 per cent over August. Over the year to September, housing credit rose by 4.8 per cent.
Other personal credit increased by 0.3 per cent over September after increasing by 0.2 per cent over August. Over the year to September, other personal credit increased by 1.0 per cent.
Business credit declined by 0.1 per cent over September after increasing by 0.1 per cent over August. Over the year to September, business credit rose by 1.1 per cent.
A chart showing the long-run breakdown in the components is provided below:
As you can see, personal credit growth (0.3% MoM; 0.5% QoQ; 1.0% YoY) and business credit growth (-0.1% MoM; 0.4% QoQ; 1.1% YoY) continue to grow at a modest pace, whereas housing credit growth (0.45% MoM; 1.3% QoQ; 4.8% YoY) has been picking-up from, but remains at fairly subdued levels relative to its long-run average growth rate.
The below chart shows the pick-up in housing credit growth more clearly:
Finally, a breakdown of owner-occupied credit (0.4% MoM; 1.1% QoQ; 4.2% YoY) and investor credit (0.6% MoM; 1.7% QoQ; 6.1% YoY) is provided below:
Once again, much of the current mortgage demand is being driven by investors, which has also been reflected in recent housing finance data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
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