By Gareth Vaughan
The Reserve Bank's latest monthly sector credit data records another weak month of credit growth although all four sectors monitored - agriculture, business, housing and consumer - did show month-on-month rises.
Housing debt rose for the ninth straight month in September, but by just NZ$84 million to NZ$172.811 billion. Year-on-year it's up NZ$2.033 billion, or 1.2% which is way down on a 17.4% peak in April 2004.
Business debt rose for the third month in a row in September, by NZ$133 million to NZ$72.113 billion. Year-on-year it's up NZ$1.12 billion, or 1.5%, well behind the 21.7% growth peak in August 2005.
Agriculture debt rose for the fourth straight month, by NZ$90 million to NZ$47.654 billion. Year-on-year it's down NZ$380 million, or 0.8%, way off the 24.9% growth peak of May 2002.
Consumer debt (which includes credit card, hire purchase and personal loans) rose, after falling in August from July, by NZ$35 million to NZ$11.586 billion. Year-on-year it's down NZ$93 million, or 0.8%, compared with the 13.7% peak recorded in May 2003.
The latest Reserve Bank figures come amid annual financial results from three of the country's big four banks. BNZ, the first to report last Thursday, predicted credit growth would remain weak.
BNZ forecasts a 1.6% 2011 rise in systems housing lending growth and a 2.4% 2012 rise, a 0.9% 2011 drop in personal loans and a 1.3% 2012 rise, a 0.7% 2011 drop in business lending and 1.9% 2012 rise, leaving total systems credit growth of just 0.6% this year and 2.1% next year.
Westpac reports its annual results on Wednesday and ANZ on Thursday. ASB, which has a June as opposed to September balance date, reported back in August. At the time ASB CEO Barbara Chapman told interest.co.nz she saw "patchy" credit demand with the bank's economists predicting systems credit growth of a little over 3% for the year to June 2012.
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