Chart of the Day: Singapore's snail-paced loan growth dropped to its slowest in 4 years

And it's beating deposit growth to the finish line.

Singapore banks may be staging a remake of preceding events leading to the Asia financial crisis in 1990s as its outstanding loans have beaten deposits for 46 months now.

According to DBS, loan growth has eased, falling to 13.5% YoY as of March. This is the slowest since Sep10 and just half of the pace recorded two years ago. 

Here's more from DBS:

Deposit growth, though, has eased even faster (to 2.5% as of March) with the result that loan growth has outpaced deposit growth for the last 46 months.

Outstanding loans in the banking system now exceed deposits.

The last time this occurred was before the Asia financial crisis (AFC) in the 1990s. The loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) has been on the rise for three years and reached 1.08 in March.

If loan growth continues to outpace deposit growth, the LDR will soon approach the historical peak of 1.17, reached between Oct97-Jan98.