ANZ, CBA continue mortgages growth: APRA

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has released its monthly authorised deposit-taking institution statistics for October 2020, which show that the total assets of Australian residents held by the banks increased slightly over the month of October, by $3.6 billion or 0.1 per cent.

Total residents’ loans and finance leases were stable over the month to October at $2.8 trillion.

According to APRA, this was driven by an increase in loans for owner-occupied housing and trading securities.

In home lending, owner-occupied loans continued to increase, rising by $5.3 billion or 0.5 per cent over the month of October.

APRA said this trend was consistent with improvements in housing market activity, low interest rates, as well as support from government measures.

There has been a consistent trend in the performance of mortgage portfolios among the four major banks over the past quarter, with ANZ and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) recording multibillion-dollar portfolio growth, while Westpac and the National Australia Bank (NAB) saw a decline.

The mortgage portfolios of ANZ and CBA grew by a combined $4.5 billion over October, driven by an increase in both owner-occupied and investment lending, according to the APRA data.

ANZ’s portfolio grew by $2.7 billion, rising from $257.2 billion in September to $259.9 billion in October.

Owner-occupied lending for ANZ increased from $171.8 billion in September to $173.8 billion in October, while investment lending jumped in October from $85.3 billion to $86.2 billion. However, this is still below August levels, when investment lending totalled $86.9 billion.

CBA’s mortgage portfolio grew from $459.0 billion in September to $460.8 billion in October, with owner-occupier lending jumping from $301.1 billion to $302.7 billion.

CBA’s investment lending segment grew from $157.9 billion in September to $158.1 billion in October.

However, NAB’s mortgage portfolio slumped from $260.4 billion in September to $259.8 billion in October. This has come after the major bank recorded $261.1 billion in its portfolio in August.

While the major bank’s investment lending recorded a slump from September’s $104.0 billion to $103.1 billion in October, owner-occupier lending grew marginally from $156.4 billion in September to $156.7 billion in October.

Westpac’s total portfolio declined in October to $404.5 billion, from $405.3 billion in September.

This decline was driven by owner-occupier lending, which fell from $228.7 billion in September to $227.9 billion in October, while investment lending remained steady at $176.6 billion.

APRA figures also showed that loans to non-financial businesses rose for the first time since April by $0.6 billion or 0.1 per cent over October, while loans to financial institutions, community service organisations and general government have trended downwards.

[Related: Residential work done dips to 6-year low]

Malavika Santhebennur is the features editor on the mortgages titles at Momentum Media.

Before joining the team in 2019, Malavika held roles with Money Management and Benchmark Media. She has been writing about financial services for the past six years.