High-LVR lending slows
Banks cut back heavily on their high loan-to-value lending in November, Reserve Bank data shows.
Wednesday, January 8th 2014, 6:00AM
by Susan Edmunds
The bank is publishing information each month on banks’ total new commitments, and what percentage is to borrowers with small deposits.
Since October, banks have had to restrict their new lending to low-deposit borrowers to no more than 10% of new lending, assessed over a six-month period.
In October, 11.7% of new lending was to borrowers with a deposit of less than 20%.
But in November, that had dropped to 5.8% after exemptions.
There was $4.435 billion of new lending in the month. Of that, $4.124 billion was to borrowers with equity of more than 20%.
BNZ economist Kymberly Martin said the impact of the restrictions had not changed the bank’s prediction on the trajectory for interest rates this year.
It expects the OCR to be 3.75% by the end of 2014, although Martin said there was more risk that it would be above that than below.
She said houses were just one sector for which prices were going up. Even if the LVR restrictions slowed that, the Reserve Bank would be worried about wider inflation.
“The jury is still out on how much impact they’re having. The Reserve Bank needs some time to assess that. It will be interested in the first few months of this year. LVR restrictions have been implemented not as a substitute for the OCR but specifically to address the financial risk to the banking sector that is driven by rising house prices. Not necessarily to bring house prices down.”
| « LVR rules tweaked | Brake comes off low-deposit lending » |
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