Commercial Finance

NAME OF ORGANISATION
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

OVERVIEW

This collection is a monthly collection of Commercial Finance commitments by Australian-resident lending institutions. Commercial Finance is considered to be lending commitments to individuals, corporations or other entities for business or investment purposes

The collection results are released monthly in Lending Finance, Australia (ABS Cat No 5671.0) and are also accessible through Ausstats (the ABS subscriber service), where it resides under its old catalogue number 5643.0. Detailed state, lender type and purpose of loan estimates may be available on a fee-for-service basis upon request.

The value of commitments for Commercial Finance are considered to be a leading indicator of investment in capital and an indicator of business sector confidence in general, and are used for analytical purposes within the ABS and by financial institutions, the Reserve Bank of Australia, governments, policy advisers, industry bodies, researchers and economists.

The survey population is all Australian-resident lending institutions.

The survey frame which seeks to cover the survey population comprises all banks authorised under the Banking Act of 1959, permanent building societies and credit unions, all lending institutions bound by the Financial Corporations Act (FCA) of 1974, and is supplemented by other known significant lending institutions such as insurance companies and superannuation funds, general government enterprises, securitisation vehicles, and institutions subject to state government regulation.

The frame coverage is conceptually good for banks, building societies, credit unions, and financial institutions subject to the FCA, where we are informed by the Reserve Bank of any additions to the frame. For securitisation vehicles, we use the frame for the securitisation collection conducted in financial accounts section, and for the remaining lending institutions where no definitive lists exist, we rely on the success of media scans and other sources to maintain frame coverage.

Conceptual framework

The Commercial Finance collection measures the value of commitments made by lending institutions to individuals, corporations and other entities to provide finance for business or investment purposes during the reference period(a calendar month).

A finance commitment is a firm offer to provide finance which has been accepted by the client. For a commitment to finance, a loan contract between lender and borrower should exist. A commitment is published by Lender Type according to the lender on the loan contract.

Lending institutions included are banks, permanent building societies, credit unions, life or general insurance companies, general government enterprises, superannuation schemes, corporations registered under the Financial Corporations Act 1974.

1 Value of commitments for commercial finance for a fixed period.
2 Value of commitments to provide revolving credit facilities for commercial purposes (including increased limits)

State (standard classification),
Lender Type (Banks, Money Market Corporations, Finance Companies).
Industry (ANZSIC)

Comments and/or Other Regions

Estimates for smaller states are more likely to be suppressed for breaches of ABS rules on the release of information which may identify an individual provider.

Frequency comments

The Collection is an annual longitudinal collection, where repeated measures are taken of the annual selected sample - one measure each month for a total of 12 annually.

COLLECTION HISTORY

• The collection began collecting monthly commercial finance in January 1985, although the loan purposes were less detailed.
• More detailed loan purpose breakdowns of commercial finance were added at the time of a forms re-design in 1991, and are published from July 1991.
• Commercial Finance as separate publication (5643.0) was discontinued in July 1993, and has since been published in the compendium publication Lending Finance Australia (5671.0).
• From June 2000, all estimates for Lender Types within States were no longer published, and Industry of Borrower estimates within States were also discontinued. State estimates (for all lenders) and Lender Type and Industry estimates (for Australia) continue to be published.
  

Data availability comments

The collection results are released monthly in Lending Finance, Australia (ABS Cat No 5671.0) and are also accessible through Ausstats (the ABS subscriber service), where it resides under its old catalogue number 5643.0. Detailed state, lender type and purpose of loan estimates may be available on a fee-for-service basis upon request.