Private-sector credit (PSC) growth remained strong and stable in January, with the underlying year-on-year growth rate unchanged at 26.6 per cent, according to the Central Bank.
Non-mortgage credit accounted for most of the 3.3 billion increase in PSC during the month, while the Bank says that there are signs that growth in residential mortgage lending may have peaked.
Year-on-year growth in nonmortgage credit rose to 24.8 per cent in January from a revised 24.4 per cent in December. This was the fifth successive monthly rise in its annual growth rate, which is now over 10 percentage points higher than it was a year ago. The rise in non-mortgage credit has been driven by term/revolving loans, which accounted for over 70 per cent of the increase during the past five months.
The Bank said that the traditional January effect was evident in mortgage lending, with residential mortgages increasing by about 1 billion or just over half of the 1.9 billion rise in December. Annual growth in residential mortgage lending has declined consistently since July 2004; this trend continued in January, when the underlying growth rate fell to 26 per cent from 26.5 per cent in December.
