Money and Credit - May 2017

Our monthly Money and Credit statistical release is made up of three parts: broad money and credit, lending to individual and lending to businesses.

Published on 29 June 2017

Key points from the data to the end of May 2017 include:

Broad money increased by £8.1 billion in May (Table A). While the 12-month growth rate for broad money overall has been at around the current level since November 2016, the growth in households' money has continued to weaken and private non-financial corporations’ (PNFCs’) has strengthened. In May, households' money fell by £0.1 billion (Table B), this being the weakest flow since January 2015. In contrast, M4 flows for PNFCs and non-intermediate other financial corporations (NIOFCs) were higher than their recent averages (Tables C-D).
Sterling lending to the UK private sector excluding intermediate other financial corporations increased by £11.0 billion in May (Table A). Net lending flows to all sectors were higher than last month (Tables B-D).

Net lending secured on dwellings was £3.5 billion in May, slightly higher than its recent average (Table H).
Mortgage approvals for house purchase were broadly stable at 65,202, while approvals for remortgaging increased slightly to 42,955 (Table I).
Annual growth in consumer credit remained strong at 10.3% in May, although below its peak in November 2016 (Table J).

PNFCs borrowed £2.8bn from UK MFIs and capital markets in May, with the largest contribution coming from loans (Table L).
Loans to large non-financial businesses increased by £3.5 billion in May (Table M). Businesses in the manufacturing and wholesale & retail industries were large contributors (Table O). Loans to small and medium-sized enterprises were broadly unchanged (Table M).