Lending levels at standstill

Mortgage rates offered to new customers fell across all maturities last month. Photo / NZ Herald

Credit growth stalled last month across the board, according to Reserve Bank figures out yesterday.

The level of loans outstanding from banks to the household, business and agriculture sectors all fell from February levels and in aggregate are up just 0.8 per cent on March last year.

The modest pick-up in business lending in the past three months of 2010 has faltered over the first three months of this year, leaving business credit up just 0.1 per cent on a year ago and 8.5 per cent down on two years ago.

Farm debt is unchanged on a year ago, having almost quadrupled over the 10 years before that.

And household debt, which makes up 60 per cent of the total, is down 0.1 per on February and up just 1.2 per cent on March last year.

Household mortgage debt was flat, while consumer debt was down 1 per cent, the figures show.

The trend towards floating and short-term mortgages continued. Half of all mortgage debt at the end of March was on floating rates, when less than a third was a year ago, and a further 28 per cent is fixed with less than a year before reset.

Mortgage rates offered to new customers fell across all maturities last month, as did the effective mortgage rate which is the weighted average rate borrowers are paying.

It fell from 6.58 to 6.43 per cent, the lowest for at least 16 years.