Yesterday’s private sector credit aggregates data from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) revealed a massive jump in business lending, with annual business credit growth surging from 3.6% in February to 6.3% in March:
This was the biggest jump in business lending in three decades as businesses scrambled to open credit lines to see them through the COVID-19 pandemic:
The sharp climb in business credit in March hearkens back to the 1980s era of corporate excess and high inflation, which gave way to massive loan defaults during the early 1990s recession.
