Money and credit - August 2019

Published on 30 September 2019

Overview

These monthly statistics on borrowing and deposits by households and businesses are used by the Bank’s policy committees to understand economic trends and developments in the banking system.

Key points:

Net consumer credit fell to £0.9 billion in August, slightly below the average of the past year.
The number of mortgage approvals for house purchase fell to 65,500 in August, down from the 18 month high of 67,000 in July, but remained within the narrow range seen in recent years.
Net finance raised by UK businesses rose by £2.4 billion in August, up from £2.3 billion of net repayments in July.

References in the text point to the summary tables below. For further statistics, please see our interactive charts and Bankstats tables.

Lending to individuals (Tables A-E)

Consumer credit (Tables B and C):

The extra amount borrowed by consumers in order to buy goods and services fell to £0.9 billion in August, slightly below the £1.0 billion average since July 2018. Within consumer credit, net credit card borrowing weakened on the month to £0.2 billion, the lowest since December 2018. Net borrowing for other loans and advances remained at £0.7 billion.

The annual growth rate of consumer credit continued to slow in August, falling to 5.4%. This remains considerably lower than its peak of 10.9% in November 2016, and is the lowest level since February 2014.

Chart 1: Consumer credit

Seasonally adjusted

Mortgage lending (Tables D and E):

Whilst net mortgage borrowing by households weakened to £3.9 billion in August, this followed a strong net flow of £4.5 billion in July. As such, the outturn was in line with the average seen since 2016. The annual growth rate was unchanged at 3.2%, in line with growth rates of the past three years.

Mortgage approvals for house purchase (an indicator for future lending) weakened to 65,500 in August, in contrast to the 18 month high of 67,000 in July. These also remained within the narrow range seen over the past three years.

Lending to businesses (Tables F-I)

Businesses can raise funds by borrowing from banks (via loans) or from financial markets (via instruments such as bonds and commercial paper, or with equity). The extra amount non-financial businesses borrowed from these sources was £2.4 billion in August, compared with £2.3 billion of net repayments in July.

The extra amount borrowed was driven by a £1.5 billion net increase in borrowing from banks, leading to an increase of the annual growth rate to 3.1%. Within this, the growth rate of borrowing from large businesses rose to 4.4%. In contrast, the growth rate of borrowing by SMEs weakened slightly to 0.7%.

UK businesses made net repayments to financial markets during August. Net repayments of equity were £1.0 billion, whilst net repayments of commercial paper were £0.4 billion. This was the sixth consecutive month of net repayments of commercial paper. Net bond issuance weakened further, with a net redemption of £0.6 billion in August.

Chart 2: Net financed raised by PNFCs

Seasonally adjusted

There is a discrepancy between the total of net finance raised and its components due to the seasonal adjustment methodology.

Borrowing by financial companies that do not act as intermediaries, such as pension funds or insurance companies (NIOFCs), rose to £16.6 billion in August, the largest amount since monthly figures were first collected in 2009. Fund managers were the largest contributor to this strength.

Broad money (Table J)

Broad money (M4ex) is a measure of the total amount of money held by households, non-financial businesses (PNFCs) and NIOFCs. In August, money holdings rose by £10.4 billion, with positive contributions from all sectors.

The total amount of money held by households rose by £4.6 billion in August. This was primarily due to a large increase in non-interest bearing deposits. The total amount of money held by NIOFCs rose by £3.3 billion, while the amount held by PNFCs rose by £2.5 billion.