The Bank of Korea announced on Oct. 13 that the balance of household loans provided by deposit banks and non-bank depository institutions increased by approximately 9.8 trillion won (US$8.5 billion) month-on-month to 773.1 trillion won (US$673.0 billion) in Aug. The amount of increase is the second-largest since records began in October 2003. Back in April this year, the amount had increased by 10.1 trillion won (US$8.8 billion), and the total household loan balance recorded an increase of 27.2 trillion won (US$23.7 billion) between Jan. and Aug. this year.
Specifically, the balance of mortgage loans rose 6.2 trillion won (US$5.4 billion) in deposit banks and 500 billion won (US$435 million) in non-bank depository institutions, to reach a total of 474.3 trillion won (US$412.9 billion). The other types of loans posted an increase of 3.1 trillion won (US$2.7 billion) in Aug. as well, with those provided by the banks rising 1.6 trillion won (US$1.4 billion) to 157.5 trillion won (US$137.1 billion), and those by institutions increasing by 1.5 trillion won (US$1.3 billion) to 141.2 trillion won (US$122.9 billion).
By region, the metropolitan area recorded an increment of 5.4 trillion won (US$4.7 billion) to reach 459.2 trillion won (US$399.6 billion), while the amounts were 4.4 trillion won (US$3.8 billion) and 313.8 trillion won (US$273.0 billion) in other regions.
“The balance of household loans continued to rise, led mainly by mortgage loans, based on a large number of housing transactions, even though Aug. was not a peak season of the housing market,” the central bank explained, adding, “It seems that collective loans appearing during the sale of new apartments had an effect on it as well, although we are not compiling statistics regarding that part as of now.”