Singapore banks' August housing loan growth sluggish at 12.4%

It's the slowest since Sept 2009.

According to DMG Research, loans growth eased in August, with domestic banking unit (DBU) and Asian currency unit (ACU) loans expanding by 0.7% m-o-m (+15% y-o-y) vs July’s +0.9% m-o-m (+16.2% y-o-y). 

Business lending rose by a more modest pace of +0.8% m-o-m/+15.9% y-o-y (July 2013: +1% m-o-m/+17.4% y-o-y) while growth for consumer loans stood at 0.7% m-o-m/+12.3% y-o-y (July 2013: +0.6% m-o-m/+13.1% m-o-m).

Here's more from DMG Research:

Of note, August’s y-o-y growth for consumer loans was the slowest since March 2010, as housing loans growth slowed down further to 12.4% y-o-y (July 2013: +13% y-o-y), its slowest since Sept 2009.

DBU loans to businesses slowed. Aug 2013 DBU loan growth eased to +0.3% m-o-m/+15.4% y-o-y vs July’s +1.2% m-o-m/+17.6% y-o-y.

This was mainly due to a slowdown in DBU business loans (flat m-o-m/+17.4% y-o-y vs July’s +1.6% m-o-m/+20.8% y-o-y), following the m-o-m decline in loans to the manufacturing (-9.4% m-o-m) and general commerce (-1.8% m-o-m) segments.

Meanwhile, DBU consumer loans growth held steady at +0.8% m-o-m but y-o-y growth was slower (+12.5% y-o-y vs July 2013: +13.2% y-o-y). Growth in housing loans displayed similar trends (Aug 2013: +0.9% m-o-m/+13.5% y-o-y vs July: +0.8% m-o-m/+14.1% y-o-y) and we expect growth to continue to moderate as the property market cooling measures implemented earlier start to filter through the system.