Forthcoming changes to monthly finance statistics

The ABS is streamlining the outputs for housing and lending finance statistics. A new publication will be released on 12 February 2019, referencing December 2018. This release will combine Housing Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5609.0) and Lending Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5671.0) into a single, simpler publication called Lending to Households and Businesses, Australia (cat. no. 5601.0).

These changes have been designed with the following priorities in mind:

• Increased efficiency in producing the publication.
• Improved usability of published statistics.
• Alignment with upcoming introduction of the Economic and Financial Statistics collection.
   

Some previously published data which is not widely used will no longer be released. Some existing outputs will be further disaggregated. New analytical series will also be added with the inclusion of seasonally adjusted and trend estimates for more data items.

This information paper contains experimental estimates for the seasonally adjusted and trend data as the method of seasonal adjustment is different to that used in the current publications of Housing Finance and Lending Finance. It is possible that with the final release of the new publication on 12 February 2019 the seasonally adjusted and trend methodology could be further refined or adjusted, compared to the method outlined in this information paper.

The changes to the method of adjusting seasonally adjusted and trend series include:

• For many statistics, reconciliation techniques have been applied to cause directly adjusted components to add up to directly adjusted totals.
• Direct adjustment has been applied to higher level aggregates than in the past.
   

When interpreting the statistics it is important to consider factors that may affect the reliability of the estimates.

The changes discussed in this paper relate only to changes in publication outputs derived through existing data collections. No new data items will be collected until the introduction of the modernised Economic and Financial Statistics (EFS) collection in 2019.

Release format:

• Combine Housing Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5609.0) and Lending Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5671.0) into a single, monthly release, Lending to Households and Businesses, Australia (cat. no. 5601.0).
• All content will be online or in Excel tables, no pdf will be released.
   

Organising principle:

• Data will be released by counterparty sector (lending to households, lending to businesses) and then by loan purpose (owner occupier dwelling, commercial, personal, lease).
   

Lender categories:

• Lender categories in the new publication are Authorised Deposit-Taking Institutions (ADIs) and ‘Non-ADIs’.
   

Lending for dwellings to households for owner occupation:

• Refinancing component will be explicit in more aggregates.
• Seasonally adjusted first home buyers series will be available for Australia and each state/territory.
   

Lending for dwellings to households for investment:

• Lending to households for investment dwellings will be available excluding refinancing for the first time.
• Seasonally adjusted lending to households for investment dwellings excluding refinancing will be available for Australia and each state/territory.
   

Lending for dwellings to businesses:

• Lending to businesses for dwellings will not be reported in the same tables as lending to households for dwellings.
• Lending to businesses for dwellings will not be available by state/territory except as implicit contributors to lending to businesses for Construction and lending to businesses for Purchase of Real Property.
• Lending to businesses for Construction and lending to businesses for Purchase of Real Property will be available by state/territory but their detailed components will not.
   

Commercial finance to businesses:

• Commercial finance will no longer include lending to individuals (households) for investment purposes (dwelling and other investment).
• Commercial finance will not be available by state/territory except for lending to business for Construction and lending to businesses for Purchase of Real Property.
• Commercial finance will include value of fixed loans, revolving credit, and lease finance. Statistics about operating leases will cease.
• Statistics about cancellations will cease.
   

Personal finance to households:

• Personal finance will be published at Australia level only.
• Personal finance will not be available by state/territory.
• Statistics about cancellations will cease.
   

Lease finance to businesses:

• There will be substantially less detail about lease finance than previously published.
• Lease finance statistics will be published at Australia level only. State/territory lease finance statistics will cease.
• Only finance leases will be reported, statistics about operating leases will cease.
• The following purposes for finance leases will be reported: ‘motor vehicles’, ‘other transport equipment’, ‘agricultural, construction and manufacturing equipment’, ‘office equipment’, ‘other’ and ‘total lease finance’.

The changes discussed in this paper relate only to changes in publication outputs derived through existing data collections. No new data items will be collected until the introduction of the modernised Economic and Financial Statistics (EFS) collection in 2019.

All the information about monthly lending commitments will be in a single publication, with the total number of Excel tables down from 75 to 28. This reduction is mostly because of reduced state and territory detail for commercial finance, personal finance and lease finance.

The release schedule for the new publication will follow the current schedule for Housing Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5609.0). This will commence with the December 2018 issue of Lending to Households and Businesses, Australia (cat. no. 5601.0) which will be released 12 February 2019.

The commentary of Housing Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5609.0) and Lending Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5671.0) will be replaced by more concise, situation-specific and analytical content aimed at helping users more readily understand the monthly statistics.

There will be no pdf version of Lending to Households and Businesses, Australia (cat. no. 5601.0). The content of the pdf versions of Housing Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5609.0) and Lending Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5671.0) was a duplication of the regular content published online. The simpler, easier-to-navigate format of the new publication reduces the need for a separate pdf publication summarising the monthly statistics.

Statistics about monthly lending commitments will be organised to align with the approach of policy makers including:

• Lending commitments will be broadly classified as “lending to households” or “lending to businesses”.
• Lending to households for investment dwellings will no longer be included in commercial finance.
• Lending to businesses for construction or purchase of dwellings for rent or resale will no longer be reported in the same table as lending to households for investment dwellings.
   

The ABS will publish state and territory-level, seasonally adjusted lending to owner-occupiers including and excluding refinancing for the first time.

The number of first home buyers who are owner-occupiers will be available in seasonally adjusted and trend series for Australia and at the state and territory level. The first home buyer ratio will be available in its current form along with a new ratio in which refinancing is excluded from the denominator. Lending to first home buyers who are not owner-occupiers remains unavailable.

A number of statistics will no longer be published:

• All tables of month-on-month percentage changes will be discontinued, though a few key percentage movements will be available in the headline table in the Main Findings section on the website.
   
• All average loan size statistics will be discontinued. Average loan size may be calculated wherever the number of commitments and the value of commitments are published, however, this should be done with caution. Some lenders have identified issues with reporting the number of dwellings relating to new loan commitments, for example, in situations where there are loan-splitting arrangements (a combination of fixed and variable rate loans for one dwelling). Because of this, calculations of average loan sizes are likely to understate the amount of lending per dwelling. Lenders are working towards fixing this reporting issue with the new EFS collection.
   
• The stock of housing loans outstanding in Housing Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5609.0 Table 12) will be discontinued. Loans outstanding with Authorised Deposit-Taking Institutions (ADIs) are available from the RBA. In addition, the lender categories Banks, Non-Banks, Permanent Building Societies, Securitisation Vehicles, and Wholesale Lenders n.e.c. are collapsed into the categories ADIs and ‘Non-ADIs’.
   
• Data categorised by lender-type will no longer be presented by purpose. For example, commitments by Credit Unions to owner-occupiers for construction of dwellings. Data will now be released separately for commitments to owner-occupiers by Authorised Deposit-taking Institutions (ADIs), which includes Credit Unions, and commitments by all lenders to owner-occupiers for construction of dwellings.
   
• All statistics about loan cancellations will be discontinued.
   
• Tables of seasonal factors will be discontinued. Seasonal factors for published statistics may be calculated by comparison of seasonally adjusted and original series.
   

Lending to households for investment dwellings will no longer form part of commercial finance.

Refinancing of loans to households for investment dwellings will be published for the first time. Lending to households for investment dwellings will be available including and excluding refinancing at Australia and state and territory levels. Seasonally adjusted state and territory statistics about lending to households for investment dwellings will be available for the first time.

The lender categories Banks, Non-Banks, Permanent Building Societies, Securitisation Vehicles and Wholesale Lenders n.e.c. will be collapsed into the categories ‘ADIs’ and ‘Non-ADIs’.

As part of commercial finance, the ABS publishes statistics about lending to businesses for construction of dwellings for rent or resale and purchase of dwellings for rent or resale. These statistics will continue to be available at the Australia level.

At the state and territory level, these statistics will no longer be published. The values reported by lenders will contribute to the aggregate state and territory statistics about Construction and Purchase of Real Property but won’t be published separately

Commercial finance statistics will be available at the Australia level and the currently published categories will be seasonally adjusted.

At the state and territory level, only lending to businesses for total construction and for total purchase of real property will be available. Total commercial finance will not be available at the state and territory level.

There will be changes to the reporting of commercial finance by state and territory with the implementation of EFS.

Commercial finance will include value of fixed loans, revolving credit, and lease finance. Statistics about operating leases will cease.

Commercial finance will no longer include lending to households for investment purposes (investment dwellings and other investment purposes).

Personal finance will be available only at the Australia level.

The personal finance categories purposes for which statistics will be produced will be reduced. For example, value of lending for the purchase of ‘motor vehicles’ will be reported but the numbers and values of loans for subcategories such as ‘used cars and station wagons’ and ‘motorcycles’ will be discontinued.

Personal finance will include lending to households for non-dwelling investment purposes for the first time.

The ABS will publish more seasonally adjusted and trend series of monthly finance statistics.

New trend and seasonally adjusted series will include:

• First home buyer loan numbers at Australia and at the state and territory levels.
• Values of loans to households for investment dwellings, including and excluding refinancing, at Australia and at the state and territory level.
   

Some seasonality will change because the ABS is changing how the aggregates are constructed. For example, total commercial finance lending will be lower in value because it will no longer include lending to households for investment purposes. Removing lending to households for investment purposes will affect the seasonality of the remaining commercial finance series. This will lead to revisions to previously published statistics.

Early indications of how seasonal adjustment changes affect the statistics can be obtained by comparing seasonally adjusted data in this information paper with seasonally adjusted data in the September releases of Housing Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5609.0) and Lending Finance, Australia (cat. no. 5671.0).

Below is a table showing how seasonally adjusted and trend statistics have changed for some key aggregates.

This release previously used catalogue number 5601.0.55.001.

Please note, the publication layout details that were previously included here (list of time series, links to download tables, etc.) have been removed. They were based on an interim version of the publication, which was later updated with EFS. To view the current version, see the latest release of Lending Indicators.