Australian banks Australian interest rates

Wake up APRA!

Thursday 30 April 2015

As I pointed out yesterday, most major banks are giving the bird to APRA and its 10% ceiling on investor mortgage growth. Mac Bank today reckons the regulator will act:

New figures showed the banks expanded loans for property investments in the year ended March by 10.4 per cent, the highest rate since 2008 and more than the 10 per cent threshold imposed by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority in December to stop a property bubble building in Sydney and elsewhere.

…The increases – when property investment lending is meant to be slowing – added to expectations of a regulatory crackdown. Macquarie analyst Mike Wiblin said the banking regulator might give a “wrist slap” to National Australia Bank, Westpac Banking Corp and ANZ.

As I noted yesterday the above the threshold growth is accelerating as well. Of the biggest six banks, only Bank of Queensland and Commonwealth are below the line and the others are accelerating above it with Macquarie leading the way at a preposterous 79% year on year growth up from 71% in February, NAB is second at 13.6% up from 13.3% in the month, Suncorp decelerated to 12.1% from 14.1%, ANZ and Westpac both accelerated from 10.2% to 10.4%:

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.