Chart of the Day: Singapore housing loan growth sluggish at 0.4%

As overall loan growth rose 6.4%.

According to Barclays, loan growth was driven by the general commerce and business sector (i.e. trade finance) up 6.4%, while housing loan growth slowed to 0.4% m/m in May.

On 28 June 2013, The MAS introduced a Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) 60% limit on property loans to individuals and fine tuned loan to value (LTV) limits on housing loans to prevent circumvention of tighter LTV limit on second and subsequent housing loans.

Here's more from Barclays:

We believe the latest measures will further strength credit underwriting standards of the banks.

As loan growth (1.2% m/m) again outpaced deposit growth of (0.5% m/m), system (ACU+DBU) loan to deposit ratio rose to 99.8%, another record high since 1999. ACU LDR reached 109.8% while DBU LDR reached 97.8%. Despite the high LDR, we believe Singapore is still one of the most resilient markets in EM Asia to liquidity outflows