From The Australian over the weekend:
“I don’t want to rule anything in or out at this point, but I wouldn’t disagree with anything Malcolm [Edey] has previously said on the subject,” said Mr Byres, who became chairman of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority in July.
…Mr Edey, speaking yesterday on the same panel at a Finsia conference in Sydney, said the long period of low interest rates was leading to an increasing “concentration of risk-taking” in the housing market.
Mr Edey and Mr Byres, however, said macroprudential rules were not new, despite recent hype.
Mr Byres added regulators were simply doing their job, citing when measures were taken to cool the market in 2003-04 after attempts to publicly talk about the risks and discuss concerns with banks failed to slow house prices.
“Because the concern continued and talking wasn’t enough, then we made some changes to capital requirements; we changed requirements around mortgage insurance; we did some other things designed to just temper the incentives.
“Much of it is just APRA doing its job, which is as things start to get a bit frothy … there’s a gradual turning up of the dial of supervisory and regulatory intensity. People love the term macroprudential because it sounds like it’s really important and novel, but there’s actually not a lot new.”
Call ’em what you like, tightening is coming to a housing speculator near you. Hit the bid, peeps.
