Credit demand up 8.88% y/y in March

Cape Town - Private sector credit demand increased to 8.88% year-on-year in March, up 0.21 percentage points from February's 8.67%, but down from 9.15% in January, data from the SA Reserve Bank showed on Thursday.

Total loans and advances on an annual basis increased from 7.93% in February to 8.28% in March.

Credit extensions to the domestic private sector excludes net credit extensions to the government sector and includes investments, bills, instalment sale credit, leasing finance, mortgage advances and other loans and advances.

Historical figures from tradingeconomics.com show that private sector credit in South Africa hit an all time high of 36% in July 1981 and a record low of -2% in May 1966.

According to the latest Reserve Bank stats the broadly defined M3 measure of money supply - M2 plus all long term deposit with monetary banking institutions - slowed by 7.42% year-on-year compared with February's 8.12%.

Claims on the domestic private sector (12-month % change) - Source: SARB