Singapore banks register highest loan growth in three years

Loans expanded 7.6% year-on-year in June.

Singapore's bank loans growth in June marked an acceleration from May’s print of 6.8% yoy.

OCBC Bank noted that June also registered the highest yoy growth since October 2014 (+9.0% yoy), and brought 1H17 to 6.0% yoy (2Q: 7.2% and 1Q: 4.8% yoy) which compares very favourably to the -1.4% yoy seen in the 1H16.

Here's more from OCBC:

Business loans accelerated from 9.3% in May to 10.5% yoy (0% mom) in June, the highest since October 2014 (+11.4% yoy). The growth drivers for business loans growth were financial institutions (+32.0% yoy, which is the 10th consecutive month of double-digit growth and the highest since March 2012), business services (+27.9% yoy, which is the 6th straight month of double-digit growth and the highest since June 2014) and general commerce (+20.9% yoy, which is the 4th consecutive month of double-digit growth and comes after a relatively recent turnaround from January 2017 where it shrank 0.9% yoy), whereas business loans continued to drag for manufacturing (-1.9% yoy, which barring the +0.9% blip in December 2016 would have been contracting since December 2014).

Consumer loans also picked up the pace to 3.7% yoy (+0.9% mom) in June, up from 3.3% (+0.2% mom) in May, as housing/bridging loans crossed the 4% handle for the fourth month this year to 4.1% yoy (incidentally also the highest since March 2017). Car loans also accelerated to 3.2% yoy in June, the highest since November 2012 and also marked the seventh straight month of yoy expansion.