APRA confirms expansion of mortgage reporting regime

In September, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) announced a proposal to enhance its Quarterly Authorised Deposit-taking Institution Property Exposures (QPEX) statistical publication from the December quarter 2019.

In its current form, the QPEX publication provides aggregate data for residential and commercial property exposures, as well as new home loan approvals for banks, credit unions and building societies.  

However, APRA stated that its proposed changes would incorporate “more detailed” data on residential property exposures and new housing loan approvals than in previous publications, while its reporting of commercial property exposures would remain unchanged.  

The regulator has now confirmed that it will proceed with its proposal to expand its publication to include “new and more detailed” statistics on residential mortgage lending.

In a letter to authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs), APRA confirmed that the next edition of its QPEX publication (to be published on 10 March 2020 for the December 2019 reference period) will include additional aggregate data on residential property exposures and new housing loan approvals.

APRA revealed that the updated QPEX publication will also include: 

• reporting of additional sector-level statistics for the “Mutual ADI” category; and 
• clarified definitions for reported items, specifically for unreported loan-to-value ratios. 

APRA claimed that its decision is part of a push towards “greater transparency”, and would enable “more in-depth” market analysis by industry analysts, media and other interested parties.

Following the announcement, APRA’s executive director of cross-industry insights and data division, Sean Carmody, said: “APRA’s updated Corporate Plan commits us to increasing transparency of both our own operations and the industries we regulate. One of the key ways we can do that is by releasing more of the data we collect.

“With the ADI sector heavily reliant on commercial and residential property lending, enhancing QPEX will translate to greater transparency and sharper insights into one of the most crucial contributors to the economy.”

APRA noted that consultation is continuing separately on its proposal for quarterly publication data sources to become non-confidential, which it said would mean that more of the underlying data may be disclosed to the public on a disaggregated basis. 

The regulator added that during the consultation process, it will continue to publish industry and peer group aggregate data, and mask data in QPEX where an individual entity’s confidential information could be revealed.

[Related: APRA pushes for ‘more granular’ mortgage reporting]