December’s showing was led by a 0.5% uptick in consumer loans to $269.62 billion. A substantial contributor to this was housing loans which had climbed 0.4% to $201.36 billion.
The segment accounts for data across three quarters of consumer lending. The increase comes as the prices of new private homes – particularly non-landed properties - in Singapore had risen by 2.1% q-o-q in 4Q2020, to record its steepest quarterly increase in the last two years.
Similarly, unsecured personal loans, excluding credit cards, had risen by 0.6% from the previous month, to hit $37.82 billion in disbursements. Other consumer loans were also up, with car loans inching up by 0.2% to $8.35 billion, while credit card loans had risen by 1.7% to $10.31 billion.
Loans for share financing was the only segment under consumer loans to record a decline in December. Lending for the segment had inched down by 0.8% from the previous month to hit $1.78 billion.
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Meanwhile, loans to businesses reversed into the green after an eight-month decline with a 0.2% m-o-m increase to $419.12 billion.
SEE: Singapore's bank lending slows for eighth month following drop in loans to businesses
A substantial lift came from a 4.9% increase in loans to financial institutions to $101.34 billion. This marks the first time the segment is recording a growth in four months.
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Loans to professionals and private individuals was up by 0.9% to $9.09 billion in December, while that to business services came in flat at $11.30 billion.
Contractions in loan disbursements were seen across the other segments, with general commerce and transport sectors recording the deepest declines of 1.6% and 2.2% respectively.
This translated to $62.57 billion in loans disbursed to the general commerce sector and $25.20 billion for transport.
Loans to the building and construction industry – the single-largest business lending segment – was also down by 0.6% to hit $149.99 bullion.
On a year-on-year basis, total bank lending was down by 2% in December. In this time, total business loans was down by 2.4% while consumer loans had slid by 1.2%.
Shares of all three banks were down on Feb 2, with OCBC dropping 2 cents or 0.19% to $10.35 and UOB dipping by 10 cents or 0.43% to $23.45. DBS meanwhile closed at $25.27, up 3 cents or 0.12%.
