Banks grow books by $9.2bn

The APRA figures for May 2017 show lenders boosted their home loan books by $9.2 billion since April, bringing their value to $1.56 trillion, reflecting a year-on-year growth of $100 billion or 6.8 per cent.

Owner-occupied loans hit $1,010 billion and investment lending $549.9 billion. According to the statistics, investment lending makes 35.24 per cent of banks’ portfolios.

In March, APRA instructed lenders to keep the flow of new interest-only lending to at most 30 per cent of all new residential lending, and ensure investor lending remains below a benchmark of 10 per cent growth.

In May 2016, investment lending made up 35.78 per cent of all lending ($522.5 billion), and the total loan books of the lenders sat at $1.46 trillion. The investment lending amount grew year-on-year by $27.4 billion (5.2 per cent) while month-on-month growth is $2.3 billion, or 0.42 per cent.

CBA had the most owner-occupied loans, $276.7 billion, up 0.11 per cent from $274.6 billion in April, while Westpac had the most investor loans, $145.2 billion, up 0.83 per cent from $144.0 billion in April.

[Related: RBA has lending rates ‘where they want them’: economist]