Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
"Intelligent Insight"
The ABS today published their data series on Lending Finance in Australia to May 2014. The seasonably adjusted value for owner occupation fell 0.7% compared with April, whilst overall commercial lending fell 6.0% month on month. There were increases in personal finance and leasing, but overall lending fell. We start with a chart showing the … Continue reading “Lending Finance Slips In May – ABS”
Reflecting on the ABS data released today, and already covered here, and putting that into context of our household surveys, we think momentum is changing and the housing sector could stall in coming months. Demand for new finance fell 0.8% in May. Whilst refinancing remains quite buoyant, thanks to low rates, investors appear to be … Continue reading “Housing Sector Likely To Stall”
The ABS released their latest housing statistics today. Total ADI lending now tops $1.3 trillion. Investment lending has reached a new high at 33.8% of all loans. The trend estimate for the total value of dwelling finance commitments excluding alterations and additions rose 0.2%. Investment housing commitments rose 0.3% and owner occupied housing commitments rose … Continue reading “Housing Finance Up To $1.3 Trillion In May – ABS”
Today the Bank of England announced that it would maintain Bank Rate at 0.5% and the size of the Asset Purchase Programme at £375 billion. The previous change in Bank Rate was a reduction of 0.5 percentage points to 0.5% on 5 March 2009. A programme of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central … Continue reading “UK Rates Kept at 0.5%; QE Continues”
The ABS released their Labour Force statistics for June 2014 today. Australia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points to 6.0 per cent in June 2014 The seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate increased by 0.1 percentage points to 64.7 per cent in June 2014. The number of people employed increased by 15,900 … Continue reading “Unemployment Up In June, Slightly.”
ASIC today released a report into fee disclosure practices for super and managed investments. The intention of the fee and cost disclosure requirements is to promote comparability of products. However, ASIC’s review of industry practices indicates that there is significant variation in the disclosure of fees and costs. A key driver of this variation is … Continue reading “ASIC Warns On Super And Managed Investment Fees”
The UK Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have today published a review of the changes introduced last year which were put in place to reduce the barriers to entry for new financial institutions. The purpose of the measures was to enable increased competition in the banking industry, to the benefit of customers. … Continue reading “Increasing Competition In Banking – Lessons From The UK”
Last week, the Future of Financial Advice regulations were tabled in Parliament, following the recently published Senate review. As currently incarnated they have the potential to drive a coach and horses through the original intentions of the FOFA reforms. Today we explore why this is so, and highlight some of the consequences for both the managed … Continue reading “Why FOFA Matters So Much”
Using the updated RBA chart pack data, we can see the movements in deposits, lending and funding, all elements impacting bank profitability and their customers. We see that funding costs are down, deposit returns are down, whilst headline lending rates are static. This is creating an opportunity for banks to discount selectively to attract target … Continue reading “Whilst Bank Margins Improve Significantly, Most Households Do Not Benefit”
Further evidence of the continued importance of peer to peer lending is highlighted by the news that Spanish based bank, Banco Santander will start referring small UK businesses to peer-to-peer lending service Funding Circle as part of a new partnership between the two firms. As we highlighted in our recent review of the development of … Continue reading “Banco Santander to refer small UK businesses to peer-to-peer lender”