Lifted by rising housing loans despite the Government’s property cooling measures, local bank lending grew 21.9 per cent year-on-year in April to hit a 30-month high.
Data released yesterday by the Monetary Authority of Singapore showed that total loans and advances by banks hit S$351 billion in April but the record high amount of bank lending came as no surprise to some analysts.
Apart from the sustained draw-downs from housing loans amid persistently low interest rates, they say the strong initial public offering market and positive business sentiment have pushed bank borrowings higher.
Housing and bridging loans accounted for S$118 billion of bank lending in April. Loans for businesses also grew to S$192 billion, boosted by borrowings for building and construction, which reached S$57.8 billion.
Credit card spending amounted to S$6.8 billion and car loans totalled S$11.5 billion.
CIMB estimates there are 7.7 million credit cards in Singapore, of which around 6.31 million are main and 1.39 million are supplementary cards. This is a 12.3-per-cent year-on-year increase and the strongest since November 2007.
Source : Today – 1 Jun 2011
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