UOB eats up biggest share in housing loans

Its share in mortgage loans sits at 27.1%.

Mortgage loans in the first quarter of the year rose 20% QoQ, RHB said, citing figures from the Credit Bureau Singapore (CBS).

According to RHB, mortgage loan applications rose the most in 1Q17, followed by motor vehicle loan applications, which rose 4.1%.

It noted from CBS that the average mortgage size for people aged between 21-29 had the greatest QoQ change among several age groups, rising 3.4% to SGD347,636.

The growth in home loan applications is believed to have been boosted after the Government tweaked property cooling measures in early Mar 2017 – the seller stamp duty holding period for homes bought from 11 Mar 2017 was shortened to three years from four years.

"Amongst the three Singapore banks under our coverage, UOB has 27.1% of its loans coming from housing loans, higher than OCBC’s 26.7% and DBS’ 21.3%. We believe the improvement in mortgage loan applications would be most positive for UOB and OCBC, in terms of future housing loan growth," RHB said.