Loans to property investors have fallen 3% in October, causing the value of lending to hit an eight-month low.
The total value of property investment lending by Australian banks dipped to $516.7 billion in October, according to the
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) latest monthly banking statistics. This is the lowest amount of investment lending by the banks since February 2015.
In the year to October 2015, investment lending remained well below APRA’s 10% annual growth guideline, with the value of loans increasing by 4%.
According to APRA’s figures, three out of the four major banks were able to curtail their investment lending enough to remain below the annual growth guideline. The National Australia Bank (
NAB) was the only exception, growing its investment loan book by $10.3 billion and recording year-on-year growth of 12%.
Westpac, on the other hand, was the only major bank to decrease lending to investors year-on-year. Loans to investors from the major bank dropped 8% over the year to October, with the value of lending down $11.4 billion from October 2014.
However, it should be noted that Westpac still holds the biggest share of loans to property investors in the Australian banking market, with the value of its investment loan book sitting at $134.9 billion – 5% higher than the second biggest lender to investors, the Commonwealth Bank of Australian (
CBA) and 43% more than NAB.
CBA wrote a value of $7.3 billion in loans to property investors over the year to October 2015, growing its investment book by 6%. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (
ANZ) increased the value of its investment portfolio by 7% year-on-year, settling a value of $5.5 billion in loans to investors.
AMP, which controversially left the investment market in July before announcing its return this month, decreased the value of investment loan book by 2% in October after settling $70 billion of investment loans less than September. Over the year to October, the non-major decreased its investment loan book by 0.4%.
The total value of lending to owner-occupiers by Australian banks increased by 3% over the month of October and 11% over the year to October.
