The Reserve Bank today began publishing new monthly statistics that will provide greater insight into the structure and activities of the banking sector.
Head of Macro Financial Stability, Bernard Hodgetts, said the Reserve Bank has worked closely with banks to develop the new statistical collection on the sector’s balance sheets.
“Since the global financial crisis there has been increased demand from the general public, media and financial analysts for more detail in financial statistics, and for these statistics to cover more areas – particularly in banking.”
The new banking statistics include breakdowns of financial instruments, including loans, securities, deposits and borrowings. They replace the existing statistical framework first introduced in the late 1980s, which was known as the Standard Statistical Return.
Statistics manager Steffi Schuster said that, with lending to households now making up a larger share of bank lending, a more comprehensive breakdown of mortgage lending to households is timely.
“Users will be able to see the banks’ mortgage lending portfolio broken down by payment type, such as interest-only, revolving credit and principal and interest. Residential investor mortgage lending will also now be separately identified.”
Comprehensive sector breakdowns have also been introduced in the collection and aligned with Statistics New Zealand’s Statistical Standard for Institutional Classifications (SCIS). “We have further expanded the business sector statistics to capture data on agriculture, commercial property and other business lending activity. For the first time, business loans fully secured by residential mortgage have been identified,” she said.
The Bank plans to expand the statistical series even further later this year and publish data that provides more detail about bank deposits, as well as lending to the business sector and commercial property sector.
“We understand the importance of data continuity, so some key statistics such as credit have been backdated to provide comparable historical data. Statistics for most new series will be available from the December 2016 month
New banking statistics can be seen in more detail on the reserves bank website here
