News

Banking industry data presented as infographics, interactive charts and tables and reports, including COVID-19 economic and industry impacts, Australian bank lending data, payments data and bank financials.

In the 12 months to February 2022, ABA member banks lent an average of $4.2 billion to agribusinesses across the country every month, a 29% increase in the average of $3.2 billion lent per month the previous year. 

“The central business of banks is assessing risk, planning for it, mitigating it, taking account of it, pricing it and transitioning its portfolio where necessary. That is the core business of banking. It’s not a side issue.”

Lending acceleration: fastest system credit growth since 2008.

The Albanese Labor Government has announced its first full ministry. Of note – Housing has been brought into the inner cabinet.

“private finance is not in a position to mobilize capital at the scale and speed required for industrial decarbonization. There is insufficient willingness and capacity to invest in innovative, emerging technologies that have not yet been proven and deployed at a commercial scale.”

“Australian people are looking to see a shift in the way politics is done … in a way that doesn’t alienate [them].”

The Australian Banking Association says it supports any action by the Council of Financial Regulators to introduce a globally aligned “taxonomy” to finance the energy transition “that also accounts for the Australian context”.

“The defining challenges in our economy are skyrocketing inflation and rising interest rates, falling real wages, and not having anywhere near enough to show for a Budget which is absolutely heaving with a trillion dollars in Liberal Party debt.”
– Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers

The decline in average household size increased the demand for homes (by number). This helps explain why rental vacancy rates quickly returned to low levels.

the purchases tended to lower government bond yields, and those purchases that were designed to support market function achieved their aim, but that purchases to support the yield target appeared to have had a detrimental effect

Household spending rose again in March 2022 by 6.6 per cent, compared to a year ago.