Bank lending growth jumped 10% in July

It was backed by stronger loan growth in manufacturing, transport, and business services.

Singapore’s bank lending growth remained upbeat at 10% YoY in July from 9.9% YoY in June, extending its strongest pace in almost four years, data from Department of Statistics (SingStat) and RHB found.

The sustained growth was backed by the pick-up in business loans to 11.8% YoY from 11.4% YoY in June amidst stronger loan growth in manufacturing, transport & storage, and business services. Meanwhile, consumer loans slipped to 4.9% YoY from 5.5% in June due to a broad-based slowdown in the growth of housing, car, and credit card loans.

Also read: Bank lending up 5.9% to $673b in June

For deposits, growth rose to 1.4% YoY from 0.7% in June due to a boost in deposit growth by government and statutory boards, as well as higher growth in non-resident deposits.

“With the rising SIBOR rates and a bias towards tightening by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), we expect M3 and loans to grow moderately at 5% from 7.3% in 2017,” RHB said. “However, loan growth is expected to buck the trend and record growth of 8.5% in 2018 from 6.1% 2017, due to the strong momentum in loans to businesses.”